HISTORIC    GHOSTS 

AND 

GHOST  HUNTERS 


HISTORIC  GHOSTS 

AND 

GHOST  HUNTERS 


BY 
H.  ADDINGTON   BRUCE 

A  utkor  of  "  The  Riddle  of  Personality  " 


NEW  YORK 
MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 

1908 


Copyright,  1908,  by 
MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


PiMished,  September,  1908 


The  Plimpton  Press  Norwood  MASS.  U3.A. 


Co 

THE  MEMORY  OF  MY  FRIEND 
JOHN   J.  HENRY 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

PREFACE ix 

I.    THE  DEVILS  OF  LODDTJN        1 

II.    THE  DRUMMER  OF  TEDWORTH 17 

EQ.    THE  HAUNTING  OF  THE  WESLEYS 36 

IV.  THE  VISIONS  OF  EMANUEL  SWEDENBORG    ....  66 

V.    THE  COCK  LANE  GHOST        81 

VI.  THE  GHOST  SEEN  BY  LORD  BROUGHAM     .     .     .     .  102 

VII.    THE  SEERESS  OF  PREVORST 120 

m.  THE  MYSTERIOUS  MB.  HOME      ........  143 

IX.   THE  WATSEKA  WONDER 171 

X.   A  MEDIEVAL  GHOST  HUNTER 198 

XI.  GHOST  HUNTERS  OF  YESTERDAY  AND  TO-DAY           .  216 


vii 


PREFACE 

THE  following  pages  represent  in  the  main 
a  discussion  of  certain  celebrated  mysteries, 
as  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  discoveries  set 
forth  in  the  writer's  earlier  work  "The  Riddle 
of  Personality." 

That  dealt,  it  may  briefly  be  recalled,  with 
the  achievements  of  those  scientists  whose 
special  endeavor  it  is  to  illumine  the  nature  of 
human  personality.  On  the  one  hand,  it 
reviewed  the  work  of  the  psychopathologists, 
or  investigators  of  abnormal  mental  life;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  labors  of  the  psychical 
researchers,  those  enthusiastic  and  patient  ex- 
plorers of  the  seemingly  supernormal  in  hu- 
man experience.  Emphasis  was  laid  on  the 
fact  that  the  two  lines  of  inquiry  are  more 
closely  interrelated  than  is  commonly  sup- 
posed, and  that  the  discoveries  made  in  each 
aid  in  the  solution  of  problems  apparently 
belonging  exclusively  in  the  other. 

To  this  phase  of  the  subject  the  writer  now 
returns.  The  problems  under  examination 


x  Preface 

are,  all  of  them,  problems  in  psychical  re- 
search: yet,  as  will  be  found,  the  majority  in 
no  small  measure  depend  for  elucidation  on 
facts  brought  to  light  by  the  psychopathol- 
ogists.  Of  course,  it  is  not  claimed  that  the 
last  word  has  here  been  said  with  respect  to 
any  one  of  these  human  enigmas.  But  it  is 
believed  that,  thanks  to  the  knowledge  gained 
by  the  investigations  of  the  past  quarter  of  a 
century,  approximately  correct  solutions  have 
been  reached;  and  that,  in  any  event,  it  is 
by  no  means  imperative  to  regard  the  phe- 
nomena in  question  as  inexplicable,  or  as 
explicable  only  on  a  spiritistic  basis. 

Before  attempting  to  solve  the  problems, 
it  manifestly  was  necessary  to  state  them.  In 
doing  this  the  writer  has  sought  to  present 
them  in  a  readable  and  attractive  form,  but 
without  any  distortion  or  omission  of  material 
facts. 

H.  ADDINGTON  BRUCE. 

BHOOKLLNE,  N.  H.,  July,  1908. 


I 

THE  DEVILS  OF  LOUDUN 

LOUD  UN  is  a  small  town  in  France  about 
midway  between  the  ancient  and  ro- 
mantic cities  of  Tours  and  Poitiers.  To-day 
it  is  an  exceedingly  unpretentious  and  an 
exceedingly  sleepy  place;  but  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  it  was  in  vastly  better  estate. 
Then  its  markets,  its  shops,  its  inns,  lacked 
not  business.  Its  churches  were  thronged 
with  worshipers.  Through  its  narrow  streets 
proud  noble  and  prouder  ecclesiastic,  thrifty 
merchant  and  active  artisan,  passed  and  re- 
passed  in  an  unceasing  stream.  It  was  rich 
in  points  of  interest,  preeminent  among  which 
were  its  castle  and  its  convent.  In  the  castle 
the  stout-hearted  Loudunians  found  a  refuge 
and  a  stronghold  against  the  ambitions  of  the 
feudal  lords  and  the  tyranny  of  the  crown. 
To  its  convent,  pleasantly  situated  in  a  grove 
of  time-honored  trees,  they  sent  their  children 
to  be  educated. 

i 


2       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

It  is  to  the  convent  that  we  must  turn  our 
steps;  for  it  was  from  the  convent  that  the 
devils  were  let  loose  to  plague  the  good  people 
of  Loudun.  And  in  order  to  understand  the 
course  of  events,  we  must  first  make  ourselves 
acquainted  with  its  history.  Very  briefly, 
then,  it,  like  many  other  institutions  of  its 
kind,  was  a  product  of  the  Catholic  counter- 
reformation  designed  to  stem  the  rising  tide 
of  Protestantism.  It  came  into  being  in  1616, 
and  was  of  the  Ursuline  order,  which  had  been 
introduced  into  France  not  many  years  earlier. 
From  the  first  it  proved  a  magnet  for  the 
daughters  of  the  nobility,  and  soon  boasted  a 
goodly  complement  of  nuns. 

At  their  head,  as  mother  superior,  was  a 
certain  Jeanne  de  Belfiel,  of  noble  birth  and 
many  attractive  qualities,  but  with  character- 
istics which,  as  the  sequel  will  show,  wrought 
much  woe  to  others  as  well  as  to  the  poor 
gentlewoman  herself.  Whatever  her  defects, 
however,  she  labored  tirelessly  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  convent,  and  in  this  respect  was 
ably  seconded  by  its  father  confessor,  worthy 
Father  Moussaut,  a  man  of  rare  good  sense 
and  possessing  a  firm  hold  on  the  consciences 
and  affections  of  the  nuns. 


The  Devils  of  Loudun  3 

Conceive  their  grief,  therefore,  when  he 
suddenly  sickened  and  died.  Now  ensued 
an  anxious  time  pending  the  appointment  of 
his  successor.  Two  names  were  foremost  for 
consideration  —  that  of  Jean  Mignon,  chief 
canon  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Cross, 
and  that  of  Urbain  Grandier,  cure  of  Saint 
Peter's  of  Loudun.  Mignon  was  a  zealous 
and  learned  ecclesiastic,  but  belied  his  name 
by  being  cold,  suspicious,  and,  some  would 
have  it,  unscrupulous.  Grandier,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  frank  and  ardent  and  generous, 
and  was  idolized  by  the  people  of  Loudun. 
But  he  had  serious  failings.  He  was  most  un- 
clerically  gallant,  was  tactless,  was  overready 
to  take  offense,  and,  his  wrath  once  fully 
roused,  was  unrelenting.  Accordingly,  little 
surprise  was  felt  when  the  choice  ultimately 
fell,  not  on  him  but  on  Mignon. 

With  Mignon  the  devils  entered  the  Ursu- 
line  convent.  Hardly  had  he  been  installed 
when  rumors  began  to  go  about  of  strange 
doings  within  its  quiet  walls;  and  that  there 
was  something  in  these  rumors  became  evi- 
dent on  the  night  of  October  12,  1632,  when 
two  magistrates  of  Loudun,  the  bailie  and  the 
civil  lieutenant,  were  hurriedly  summoned  to 


4       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

the  convent  to  listen  to  an  astonishing  story. 
For  upwards  of  a  fortnight,  it  appeared,  sev- 
eral of  the  nuns,  including  Mother  Superior 
Belfiel,  had  been  tormented  by  specters  and 
frightful  visions.  Latterly  they  had  given 
every  evidence  of  being  possessed  by  evil 
spirits.  With  the  assistance  of  another  priest, 
Father  Barre",  Mignon  had  succeeded  in  ex- 
orcising the  demons  out  of  all  the  afflicted 
save  the  mother  superior  and  a  Sister  Claire. 

In  their  case  every  formula  known  to  the 
ritual  had  failed.  The  only  conclusion  was 
that  they  were  not  merely  possessed  but  be- 
witched, and  much  as  he  disliked  to  bring 
notoriety  on  the  convent,  the  father  confessor 
had  decided  it  was  high  time  to  learn  who  was 
responsible  for  the  dire  visitation.  He  had 
called  the  magistrates,  he  explained,  in  order 
that  legal  steps  might  be  taken  to  apprehend 
the  wizard,  it  being  well  established  that 
"devils  when  duly  exorcised  must  speak  the 
truth,"  and  that  consequently  there  could  be 
no  doubt  as  to  the  identity  of  the  offender, 
should  the  evil  spirits  be  induced  to  name  the 
source  of  their  authority. 

Without  giving  the  officials  time  to  recover 
from  their  amazement,  Mignon  led  them  to 


The  Devils  o/  Lvudun  5 

an  upper  room,  where  they  found  the  mother 
superior  and  Sister  Claire,  wan-faced  and 
fragile  looking  creatures  on  whose  counte- 
nances were  expressions  of  fear  that  would 
have  inspired  pity  in  the  most  stony-hearted. 
About  them  hovered  monks  and  nuns.  At 
sight  of  the  strangers,  Sister  Claire  lapsed  into 
a  semi-comatose  condition;  but  the  mother 
superior  uttered  piercing  shrieks,  and  was  at- 
tacked by  violent  convulsions  that  lasted  until 
the  father  confessor  spoke  to  her  in  a  com- 
manding tone.  Then  followed  a  startling 
dialogue,  carried  on  in  Latin  between  Mignon 
and  the  soi-disant  demon  possessing  her. 

"Why  have  you  entered  this  maiden's 
body?" 

"Because  of  hatred." 

"What  sign  do  you  bring?" 

"Flowers." 

"What  flowers?" 

"Roses." 

"Who  has  sent  them?" 

A  moment's  hesitation,  then  the  single  word 
—  "Urbain." 

"Tell  us  his  surname?" 

"Grandier." 

In  an  instant  the  room  was  in  an  uproar. 


6       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

But  the  magistrates  did  not  lose  their  heads. 
To  the  bailie  in  especial  the  affair  had  a  sus- 
picious look.  He  had  heard  the  devil  "speak 
worse  Latin  than  a  boy  of  the  fourth  class," 
he  had  noted  the  mother  superior's  hesitancy 
in  pronouncing  Grandier's  name,  and  he  was 
well  aware  that  deadly  enmity  had  long  ex- 
isted between  Grandier  and  Mignon.  So  he 
placed  little  faith  in  the  latter's  protestation 
that  the  naming  of  his  rival  had  taken  him 
completely  by  surprise.  Consulting  with  his 
colleague,  he  coldly  informed  Mignon  that  be- 
fore any  arrest  could  be  made  there  must  be 
further  investigation,  and,  promising  to  return 
next  day,  bade  them  good  night. 

Next  day  found  the  convent  besieged  by 
townspeople,  indignant  at  the  accusation 
against  the  popular  priest,  and  determined  to 
laugh  the  devils  out  of  existence.  Grandier 
himself,  burning  with  rage,  hastened  to  the 
bailie  and  demanded  that  the  nuns  be  sep- 
arately interrogated,  and  by  other  inquisitors 
than  Mignon  and  Barre.  In  these  demands 
the  bailie  properly  acquiesced ;  but,  on  attempt- 
ing in  person  to  enforce  his  orders  to  that 
effect,  he  was  denied  admittance  to  the  con- 
vent. Excitement  ran  high;  so  high  that, 


The  Devils  of  Loudun  7 

fearful  for  his  personal  safety,  Mignon  con- 
sented to  accept  as  exorcists  two  priests  ap- 
pointed, not  by  the  bailie,  but  by  the  Bishop 
of  Poitiers  —  who,  it  might  incidentally  be 
mentioned,  had  his  own  reasons  for  disliking 
Grandier. 

Exorcising  now  went  on  daily,  to  the  dis- 
gust of  the  serious-minded,  the  mystification 
of  the  incredulous,  the  delight  of  sensation- 
mongers,  and  the  baffled  fury  of  Grandier. 
So  far  the  play,  if  melodramatic,  had  not  ap- 
proached the  tragic.  Sometimes  it  degener- 
ated to  the  broadest  farce  comedy.  Thus,  on 
one  occasion  when  the  devil  was  being  read 
out  of  the  mother  superior,  a  crashing  sound 
was  heard  and  a  huge  black  cat  tumbled  down 
the  chimney  and  scampered  about  the  room. 
At  once  the  cry  was  raised  that  the  devil  had 
taken  the  form  of  a  cat,  a  mad  chase  ensued, 
and  it  would  have  gone  hard  with  pussy  had 
not  a  nun  chanced  to  recognize  in  it  the  pet 
of  the  convent. 

Still,  there  were  circumstances  which  tended 
to  inspire  conviction  in  the  mind  of  many. 
The  convulsions  of  the  possessed  were  un- 
doubtedly genuine,  and  undoubtedly  they 
manifested  phenomena  seemingly  inexplicable 


8       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

on  any  naturalistic  basis.  A  contemporary 
writer,  describing  events  of  a  few  months 
later,  when  several  recruits  had  been  added 
to  their  ranks,  states  that  some  "when  com- 
atose became  supple  like  a  thin  piece  of  lead, 
so  that  their  body  could  be  bent  in  every  direc- 
tion, forward,  backward,  or  sideways,  till 
their  head  touched  the  ground,"  and  that 
others  showed  no  sign  of  pain  when  struck, 
pinched,  or  pricked.  Then,  too,  they  whirled 
and  danced  and  grimaced  and  howled  in  a 
manner  impossible  to  any  one  in  a  perfectly 
normal  state.* 

For  a  few  brief  weeks  Grandier  enjoyed  a 
respite,  thanks  to  the  intervention  of  his 
friend,  the  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux,  who 
threatened  to  send  a  physician  and  priests 
of  his  own  choice  to  examine  the  possessed,  a 
threat  of  itself  sufficient,  apparently,  to  put 
the  devils  to  flight.  But  they  returned  with 
undiminished  vigor  upon  the  arrival  in  Loudun 
of  a  powerful  state  official  who,  unfortunately 

*  Aubin's  "Histoire  des  Diables  de  Loudun,"  a  book  by  a  writer 
who  scoffed  at  the  idea  that  the  nuns  had  actually  been  bewitched. 
For  an  account  by  a  contemporary  who  firmly  believed  the  charges 
brought  against  Grandier,  consult  Niau's  "  La  Veritable  Histoire  des 
Diables  de  Loudun."  This  latter  work  is  accessible  in  an  English 
translation  by  Edmund  Goldsmid. 


The  Devils  of  Loudun  9 

for  Grandier,  was  a  relative  of  Mother  Supe- 
rior Belfiel's.  This  official,  whose  name  was 
Laubardemont,  had  come  to  Loudun  on  a 
singular  mission.  Richelieu,  the  celebrated 
cardinal  statesman,  in  the  pursuit  of  his  pol- 
icy of  strengthening  the  crown  and  weakening 
the  nobility,  had  resolved  to  level  to  the  ground 
the  fortresses  and  castles  of  interior  France, 
and  among  those  marked  for  destruction  was 
the  castle  of  Loudun.  Thither,  therefore, 
he  despatched  Laubardemont  to  see  that  his 
orders  were  faithfully  executed. 

Naturally,  the  cardinal's  commissioner  be- 
came interested  in  the  trouble  that  had  be- 
fallen his  kinswoman,  and  the  more  interested 
when  Mignon  hinted  to  him  that  there  was 
reason  to  believe  that  the  suspected  wizard 
was  also  the  author  of  a  recent  satire  which 
had  set  the  entire  court  laughing  at  Riche- 
lieu's expense.  What  lent  plausibility  to  this 
charge  was  the  fact  that  the  satire  had  been 
universally  accredited  to  a  court  beauty  form- 
erly one  of  Grandier 's  parishioners.  Also  there 
was  the  fact  that  in  days  gone  by,  when 
Richelieu  was  merely  a  deacon,  he  had  had  a 
violent  quarrel  with  Grandier  over  a  question 
of  precedence.  Putting  two  and  two  together, 


10     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

and  knowing  that  it  would  result  to  his  own 
advantage  to  unearth  the  real  author  to  the 
satire,  Laubardemont  turned  a  willing  ear  to 
the  suggestion  that  the  woman  in  question 
had  allowed  her  old  pastor  to  shield  himself 
behind  her  name. 

Back  to  Paris  the  commissioner  galloped  to 
carry  the  story  to  Richelieu.  The  cardinal's 
anger  knew  no  bounds.  From  the  King  he 
secured  a  warrant  for  Grandier's  arrest,  and 
to  this  he  added  a  decree  investing  Laubarde- 
mont with  full  inquisitorial  powers.  Events 
now  moved  rapidly.  Though  forewarned  by 
Parisian  friends,  Grandier  refused  to  seek 
safety  by  flight,  and  was  arrested  in  spectac- 
ular fashion  while  on  his  way  to  say  mass. 
His  home  was  searched,  his  papers  were 
seized,  and  he  himself  was  thrown  into  an 
improvised  dungeon  in  a  house  belonging  to 
Mignon.  Witnesses  in  his  favor  were  in- 
timidated, while  those  willing  to  testify  against 
him  were  liberally  rewarded.  To  such 
lengths  did  the  prosecution  go  that,  discov- 
ering a  strong  undercurrent  of  popular  in- 
dignation, Laubardemont  actually  procured 
from  the  King  and  council  a  decree  prohibit- 
ing any  appeal  from  his  decisions,  and  gave 


The  Devils  of  Loudun  11 

out  that,  since  King  and  cardinal  believed  in 
the  enchantment,  any  one  denying  it  would  be 
held  guilty  of  lese  majesty  divine  and  human. 

Under  these  circumstances  Grandier  was 
doomed  from  the  outset.  But  he  made  a 
desperate  struggle,  and  his  opponents  were 
driven  to  sore  straits  to  bolster  up  their  case. 
The  devils  persisted  in  speaking  bad  Latin, 
and  continually  failed  to  meet  tests  which 
they  themselves  had  suggested.  Sometimes 
their  failures  were  only  too  plainly  the  result 
of  human  intervention. 

For  instance,  the  mother  superior's  devil 
promised  that,  on  a  given  night  and  in  the 
church  of  the  Holy  Cross,  he  would  lift  Lau- 
bardemont's  cap  from  his  head  and  keep  it 
suspended  in  mid-air  while  the  commissioner 
intoned  a  miserere.  When  the  time  came  for 
the  fulfilment  of  this  promise  two  of  the  spec- 
tators noticed  that  Laubardemont  had  taken 
care  to  seat  himself  at  a  goodly  distance  from 
the  other  participants.  Quietly  leaving  the 
church,  these  amateur  detectives  made  their 
way  to  the  roof,  where  they  found  a  man  in 
the  act  of  dropping  a  long  horsehair  line,  to 
which  was  attached  a  small  hook,  through  a 
hole  directly  over  the  spot  where  Laubarde- 


12     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

mont  was  sitting.  The  culprit  fled,  and  that 
night  another  failure  was  recorded  against 
the  devil. 

But  such  fiascos  availed  nothing  to  save 
Grandier.  Neither  did  it  avail  him  that, 
before  sentence  was  finally  passed,  Sister 
Claire,  broken  in  body  and  mind,  sobbingly 
affirmed  his  innocence,  protesting  that  she 
did  not  know  what  she  was  saying  when  she 
accused  him;  nor  that  the  mother  superior, 
after  two  hours  of  agonizing  torture  self- 
imposed,  fell  on  her  knees  before  Laubarde- 
mont,  made  a  similar  admission,  and,  passing 
into  the  convent  orchard,  tried  to  hang  her- 
self. The  commissioner  and  his  colleagues 
remained  obdurate,  averring  that  these  con- 
fessions were  in  themselves  evidence  of  witch- 
craft, since  they  could  be  prompted  only  by 
the  desire  of  the  devils  to  save  their  master 
from  his  just  fate.  In  August,  1634,  Gran- 
dier 's  doom  was  pronounced.  He  was  to  be 
put  to  the  torture,  strangled,  and  burned. 
This  judgment  was  carried  out  to  the  letter, 
save  that  when  the  executioner  approached 
to  strangle  him,  the  ropes  binding  him  to  the 
stake  loosened,  and  he  fell  forward  among 
the  flames,  perishing  miserably. 


The  Devils  of  Loudun  13 

It  only  remains  to  analyze  this  medieval 
tragedy  in  the  light  of  modern  knowledge. 
To  the  people  of  his  own  generation  Grand- 
ier  was  either  a  wizard  most  foul,  or  the  vic- 
tim of  a  dastardly  plot  in  which  all  concerned 
in  harrying  him  to  his  death  knowingly  par- 
ticipated. These  opinions  posterity  long 
shared.  But  now  it  is  quite  possible  to  reach 
another  conclusion.  That  there  was  a  con- 
spiracy is  evident  even  from  the  facts  set  down 
by  those  hostile  to  Grandier.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  as  unnecessary  as  it  is  incredible 
to  believe  that  the  plotters  included  every  one 
instrumental  in  fixing  on  the  unhappy  cure 
the  crime  of  witchcraft. 

Bearing  in  mind  the  discoveries  of  recent 
years  in  the  twin  fields  of  physiology  and  psy- 
chology, it  seems  evident  that  the  conspirators 
were  actually  limited  in  number  to  Mignon, 
Barre,  Laubardemont,  and  a  few  of  their  in- 
timates. In  Laubardemont's  case,  indeed, 
there  is  some  reason  for  supposing  that  he 
was  more  dupe  than  knave,  and  is  therefore 
to  be  placed  in  the  same  category  as  the  super- 
stitious monks  and  townspeople  on  whom 
Mignon  and  Barre  so  successfully  imposed. 
As  to  the  possessed  —  the  mother  superior 


14     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

and  her  nuns  —  they  may  one  and  all  be 
included  in  a  third  group  as  the  unwitting 
tools  of  Mignon's  vengeance.  In  fine,  it  is 
not  only  possible  but  entirely  reasonable  to 
regard  Mignon  as  a  seventeenth-century  fore- 
runner of  Mesmer,  Elliotson,  Esdaile,  Braid, 
Charcot,  and  the  present  day  exponents  of 
hypnotism;  and  the  nuns  as  his  helpless 
"subjects,"  obeying  his  every  command  with 
the  fidelity  observable  to-day  in  the  patients 
of  the  Salpetriere  and  other  centers  of  hyp- 
notic practice. 

The  justness  of  this  view  is  borne  out  by 
the  facts  recorded  by  contemporary  annal- 
ists, of  which  only  an  outline  has  been  given 
here.  The  nuns  of  Loudun  were,  as  has  been 
said,  mostly  daughters  of  the  nobility,  and 
were  thus,  in  all  likelihood,  temperamentally 
unstable,  sensitive,  high-strung,  nervous.  The 
seclusion  of  their  lives,  the  monotonous  rou- 
tine of  their  every-day  occupations,  and  the 
possibilities  afforded  for  dangerous,  morbid 
introspection,  could  not  but  have  a  baneful 
effect  on  such  natures,  leading  inevitably  to 
actual  insanity  or  to  hysteria.  That  the 
possessed  were  hysterical  is  abundantly  shown 
by  the  descriptions  their  historians  give  of  the 


The  Devils  of  Loudun  15 

character  of  their  convulsions,  contortions, 
etc.,  and  by  the  references  to  the  anesthetic, 
or  non-sensitive,  spots  on  their  bodies.  Now, 
as  we  know,  the  convent  at  Loudun  had  been 
in  existence  for  only  a  few  years  before  Mignon 
became  its  father  confessor,  and  so,  we  may 
believe,  it  fell  out  that  he  appeared  on  the 
scene  precisely  when  sufficient  time  had 
elapsed  for  environment  and  heredity  to  do 
their  deadly  work  and  provoke  an  epidemic 
of  hysteria. 

In  those  benighted  times  such  attacks  were 
popularly  ascribed  to  possession  by  evil  spirits. 
The  hysterical  nuns,  as  the  chronicles  tell  us, 
explained  their  condition  to  Mignon  by  inform- 
ing him  that,  shortly  before  the  onset  of  their 
trouble,  they  had  been  haunted  by  the  ghost 
of  their  former  confessor,  Father  Moussaut. 
Here  Mignon  found  his  opportunity.  Pic- 
ture him  gently  rebuking  the  unhappy  women, 
admonishing  them  that  such  a  good  man  as 
Father  Moussaut  would  never  return  to  tor- 
ment those  who  had  been  in  his  charge,  and 
insisting  that  the  source  of  their  woes  must  be 
sought  elsewhere;  in,  say,  some  evil  disposed 
person,  hostile  to  Father  Moussaut's  successor, 
and  hoping,  through  thus  afflicting  them,  to 


16     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

bring  the  convent  into  disrepute  and  in  this 
way  strike  a  deadly  blow  at  its  new  father  con- 
fessor. Who  might  be  this  evil  disposed  per- 
son? Who,  in  truth,  save  Urbain  Grandier? 

Picture  Mignon,  again,  observing  that  his 
suggestion  had  taken  root  in  the  minds  of  two 
of  the  most  emotional  and  impressionable, 
the  mother  superior  and  Sister  Claire.  Then 
would  follow  a  course  of  lessons  designed  to 
aid  the  suggestion  to  blossom  into  open  accu- 
sation. And  presently  Mignon  would  make 
the  discovery  that  the  mother  superior  and 
Sister  Claire  would,  when  in  a  hysterical  state, 
blindly  obey  any  command  he  might  make, 
cease  from  their  convulsions,  respond  intel- 
ligently and  at  his  will  to  questions  put  to 
them,  renew  their  convulsions,  lapse  even 
into  seeming  dementia. 

Doubtless  he  did  not  grasp  the  full  signifi- 
cance and  possibilities  of  his  discovery  —  had 
he  done  so  the  devils  would  not  have  bungled 
matters  so  often,  and  no  embarrassing  con- 
fessions would  have  been  forthcoming.  But 
he  saw  clearly  enough  that  he  had  in  his  hand 
a  mighty  weapon  against  his  rival,  and  history 
has  recorded  the  manner  and  effectiveness 
with  which  he  used  it. 


n 

THE  DRUMMER  OF  TEDWORTH 

THERE  have  been  drummers  a  plenty  in 
all  countries  and  all  ages,  but  there 
surely  has  never  been  the  equal  of  the  drum- 
mer of  Tedworth.  His  was  the  distinction 
to  inspire  terror  the  length  and  breadth  of  a 
kingdom,  to  set  a  nation  by  the  ears  —  nay, 
even  to  disturb  the  peace  of  Church  and 
Crown. 

When  the  Cromwellian  wars  broke  out,  he 
was  in  his  prime,  a  stout,  sturdy  Englishman, 
suffering,  as  did  his  fellows,  from  the  misrule 
of  the  Stuarts,  and  ready  for  any  desperate 
step  that  might  better  his  fortunes.  Volun- 
teering, therefore,  under  the  man  of  blood 
and  iron,  tradition  has  it  that  from  the  first 
battle  to  the  last  his  drum  was  heard  inspir- 
ing the  revolutionists  to  mighty  deeds  of  valor. 
The  conflict  at  an  end,  Charles  beheaded, 
and  the  Fifth  Monarchy  men  creating  chaos 
in  their  noisy  efforts  to  establish  the  Kingdom 
of  God  on  earth,  he  lapsed  into  an  obscurity 

17 


18      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

that  endured  until  the  Restoration.  Then  he 
reemerged,  not  as  a  veteran  living  at  ease  on 
laurels  well  won,  but  as  a  wandering  beggar, 
roving  from  shire  to  shire  in  quest  of  alms, 
which  he  implored  to  the  accompaniment  of 
fearsome  music  from  his  beloved  drum. 

Thus  he  journeyed,  undisturbed  and  gain- 
ing a  sufficient  living,  until  he  chanced  in  the 
spring  of  1661  to  invade  the  quiet  Wiltshire 
village  of  Tedworth.  At  that  time  the  in- 
terests of  Tedworth  were  identical  with  the 
interests  of  a  certain  Squire  Mompesson,  and 
he,  being  a  gouty,  irritable  individual,  was 
little  disposed  to  have  his  peace  and  the 
peace  of  Tedworth  disturbed  by  the  drum- 
mer's loud  bawling  and  louder  drumming. 
At  his  orders  rough  hands  seized  the  unhappy 
wanderer,  blows  rained  upon  him,  and  he 
was  driven  from  Tedworth  minus  his  drum. 
In  vain  he  begged  the  wrathful  Mompesson 
to  restore  it  to  him;  in  vain,  with  the  tears 
streaming  down  his  battle-worn,  weather- 
beaten  face,  he  protested  that  the  drum  was 
the  only  friend  left  to  him  in  all  the  world; 
and  in  vain  he  related  the  happy  memories  it 
held  for  him.  "  Go,"  he  was  roughly  told  — 
"go,  and  be  thankful  thou  escapest  so  lightly!" 


The  Drummer  of  Tedworth  19 

So  go  he  did,  and  whither  he  went  nobody 
knew,  and  for  the  moment  nobody  cared. 

But  all  Tedworth  soon  had  occasion  to 
wish  that  his  lamentations  had  moved  the 
Squire  to  pity.  Hardly  a  month  later,  when 
Mompesson  had  journeyed  to  the  capital  to 
pay  his  respects  to  the  King,  his  family  were 
aroused  in  the  middle  of  the  night  by  angry 
voices  and  an  incessant  banging  on  the  front 
door.  Windows  were  tried;  entrance  was 
vehemently  demanded.  Within,  panic  reigned 
at  once.  The  house  was  situated  in  a  lonely 
spot,  and  it  seemed  certain  that,  having  heard 
of  its  master's  absence,  a  band  of  highway- 
men, with  whom  the  countryside  abounded, 
had  planned  to  turn  burglars.  The  occupants, 
consisting  as  they  did  of  women  and  children, 
could  at  best  make  scant  resistance;  and  con- 
sequently there  was  much  quaking  and  trem- 
bling, until,  finding  the  bolts  and  bars  too 
strong  for  them,  the  unwelcome  visitors  with- 
drew. 

Unmeasured  was  Mompesson's  wrath  when 
he  returned  and  learned  of  the  alarm.  He 
only  hoped,  he  declared,  that  the  villains 
would  venture  back  —  he  would  give  them  a 
greeting  such  as  had  not  been  known  since 


20      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

the  days  of  the  great  war.  That  very  night 
he  had  opportunity  to  make  good  his  boast, 
for  soon  after  the  household  had  sought  repose 
the  disturbance  broke  out  anew.  Lighting  a 
lantern,  slipping  into  a  dressing-gown,  and 
snatching  up  a  brace  of  pistols,  the  Squire 
dashed  down-stairs,  the  noise  becoming  louder 
the  nearer  he  reached  the  door.  Click,  clash 
—  the  bolts  were  slipped  back,  the  key  was 
turned,  and,  lantern  extended,  he  peered  into 
the  night. 

The  moment  he  opened  the  door  all  became 
still,  and  nothing  but  empty  darkness  met  his 
eyes.  Almost  immediately,  however,  the 
knocking  began  at  a  second  door,  to  which, 
after  making  the  first  fast,  he  hurried,  only 
to  find  the  same  result,  and  to  hear,  with 
mounting  anger,  a  tumult  at  yet  another 
door.  Again  silence  when  this  was  thrown 
open.  But,  stepping  outside,  as  he  afterward 
told  the  story,  Mompesson  became  aware 
of  "a  strange  and  hollow  sound  in  the  air." 
Forthwith  the  suspicion  entered  his  mind 
that  the  noises  he  had  heard  might  be  of 
supernatural  origin.  To  him,  true  son  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  a  suspicion  of  this  sort 
was  tantamount  to  certainty,  and  an  unreason- 


The  Drummer  of  Tedworth  21 

ing  alarm  filled  his  soul;  an  alarm  that  grew 
into  deadly  fear  when,  safe  in  the  bed  he  had 
hurriedly  sought,  a  tremendous  booming 
sound  came  from  the  top  of  the  house. 

Here,  in  an  upper  room,  for  safe-keeping 
and  as  an  interesting  relic  of  the  Civil  War, 
had  been  placed  the  beggar's  drum,  and  the 
terrible  thought  occurred  to  Mompesson: 
"Can  it  be  that  the  drummer  is  dead,  and 
that  his  spirit  has  returned  to  torment  me?" 

A  few  nights  later  no  room  for  doubt 
seemed  left.  Instead  of  the  nocturnal  shout- 
ing and  knocking,  there  began  a  veritable 
concert  from  the  room  containing  the  drum. 
This  concert,  Mompesson  informed  his  friends, 
opened  with  a  peculiar  "hurling  in  the  air 
over  the  house,"  and  closed  with  "the  beating 
of  a  drum  like  that  at  the  breaking  up  of  a 
guard."  The  mental  torture  of  the  Squire 
and  his  family  may  be  easier  imagined  than 
described.  And  before  long  matters  grew 
much  worse,  when,  becoming  emboldened, 
the  ghostly  drummer  laid  aside  his  drum  to 
play  practical,  and  sometimes  exceedingly 
painful,  jokes  on  the  members  of  the  house- 
hold. 

Curiously  enough,  his  malice  was  chiefly 


22       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

directed  against  Mompesson's  children,  who 
—  poor  little  dears  —  had  certainly  never 
worked  him  any  injury.  Yet  we  are  told  that 
for  a  time  "it  haunted  none  particularly  but 
them."  When  they  were  in  bed  the  coverings 
were  dragged  off  and  thrown  on  the  floor; 
there  was  heard  a  scratching  noise  under  the 
bed  as  of  some  animal  with  iron  claws;  some- 
times they  were  lifted  bodily,  "so  that  six 
men  could  not  hold  them  down,"  and  their 
limbs  were  beaten  violently  against  the  bed- 
posts. Nor  did  the  unseen  and  unruly  visitant 
scruple  to  plague  Mompesson's  aged  mother, 
whose  Bible  was  frequently  hidden  from  her, 
and  in  whose  bed  ashes,  knives,  and  other 
articles  were  placed. 

As  time  passed  marvels  multiplied.  The 
assurance  is  solemnly  given  that  "chairs 
moved  of  themselves."  A  board,  it  is  insisted, 
rose  out  of  the  floor  of  its  own  accord  and 
flung  itself  violently  at  a  servant.  Strange 
lights,  "like  corpse  candles,"  floated  about. 
The  Squire's  personal  attendant  John,  "a 
stout  fellow  and  of  sober  conversation,"  was 
one  night  confronted  by  a  ghastly  apparition 
in  the  form  of  "a  great  body  with  two  red 
and  glaring  eyes."  Frequently,  too,  when 


The  Drummer  of  Tedworth  23 

John  was  in  bed  he  was  treated  as  were  the 
children,  his  coverings  removed,  his  body 
struck,  etc.  But  it  was  noticed  that  when- 
ever he  grasped  and  brandished  a  sword  he 
was  left  in  peace.  Clearly,  the  ghost  had  a 
healthy  respect  for  cold  steel. 

It  had  less  respect  for  exorcising,  which, 
of  course,  was  tried,  but  tried  in  vain.  All 
went  well  as  long  as  the  clergyman  was  on 
his  knees  saying  the  prescribed  prayers  by 
the  bedside  of  the  tormented  children,  but  the 
moment  he  rose  a  bed  staff  was  thrown  at 
him  and  other  articles  of  furniture  danced 
about  so  madly  that  body  and  limb  were  en- 
dangered. 

Mompesson  was  at  his  wits'  end.  Well 
might  he  be!  Apart  from  the  injury  done 
to  his  family  and  belongings,  his  house  was 
thronged  night  and  day  by  inquisitive  visitors 
from  all  sections  of  the  country.  He  was 
denounced  on  the  one  hand  as  a  trickster, 
and  on  the  other  as  a  man  who  must  be  guilty 
of  some  terrible  secret  sin,  else  he  would  not 
thus  be  vexed.  Sermons  were  preached  with 
him  as  the  text.  Factions  were  formed, 
angrily  affirming  and  denying  the  super- 
natural character  of  the  disturbances.  News 


24      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

of  the  affair  traveled  even  to  the  ears  of  the 
King,  who  dispatched  an  investigating  com- 
mission to  Mompesson  House,  where,  greatly 
to  the  delight  of  the  unbelieving,  nothing 
untoward  occurred  during  the  commissioners* 
visit.  But  thereafter,  as  if  to  make  up  for 
lost  time,  the  most  sensational  and  vexatious 
phenomena  of  the  haunting  were  produced. 

Thus  matters  continued  for  many  months, 
until  it  dawned  on  Mompesson  and  his  friends 
that  possibly  the  case  was  not  one  of  ghosts 
but  one  of  witchcraft.  This  suspicion  rose 
from  the  singular  circumstance  that  voices 
in  the  children's  room  began,  "for  a  hundred 
times  together,"  to  cry  "A  witch!  A  witch!" 
Resolved  to  put  matters  to  a  test,  one  of  the 
boldest  of  a  company  of  spectators  suddenly 
demanded,  "Satan,  if  the  drummer  set  .thee 
to  work,  give  three  knocks  and  no  more!" 
To  which  three  knocks  were  distinctly  heard, 
and  afterward,  by  way  of  confirmation,  five 
knocks  as  requested  by  another  onlooker. 

Now  began  an  eager  hunt  for  the  once 
despised  drummer,  who  was  presently  found 
in  jail  at  Gloucester  accused  of  theft.  And 
with  this  discovery  word  was  brought  to 
Mompesson  that  the  drummer  had  openly 


The  Drummer  of  Tedworth  25 

boasted  of  having  bewitched  him.  This  was 
enough  for  the  outraged  Squire.  There  was 
in  existence  an  act  of  King  James  I.  holding 
it  a  felony  to  "feed,  employ,  or  reward  any 
evil  spirit,"  and  under  its  provisions  he 
speedily  had  his  alleged  persecutor  indicted 
as  a  wizard. 

Amid  great  excitement  the  aged  veteran 
was  brought  from  Gloucester  to  Salisbury  to 
stand  trial.  But  his  spirit  remained  unbroken. 
Instead  of  confessing,  humbly  begging  mercy, 
and  promising  amends,  he  undertook  to  bar- 
gain with  Mompesson,  promising  that  if  the 
latter  secured  his  liberty  and  gave  him  em- 
ployment as  a  farm  hand,  he  would  rid  him 
of  the  haunting.  Perhaps  because  he  feared 
treachery,  perhaps  because,  as  he  said,  he 
felt  sure  the  drummer  "could  do  him  no  good 
in  any  honest  way,"  Mompesson  rejected  this 
ingenuous  proposal. 

So  the  drummer  was  left  to  his  fate,  which, 
for  those  days,  was  most  unexpected.  A 
packed  and  attentive  court  room  listened  to 
the  tale  of  the  mishaps  and  misadventures 
that  had  made  Mompesson  House  a  national 
center  of  interest;  it  was  proved  that  the 
accused  had  been  intimate  with  an  old  vaga- 


26       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

bond  who  pretended  to  possess  supernatural 
powers;  and  emphasis  was  laid  on  the  alleged 
fact  that  he  had  boasted  of  having  revenged 
himself  on  Mompesson  for  the  confiscation 
of  his  drum.  Luckily  for  him,  Mompesson 
was  not  the  power  in  Salisbury  that  he  was  in 
Tedworth,  and  the  drummer's  eloquent  de- 
fense moved  the  jury  to  acquit  him  and  to 
send  him  on  his  way  rejoicing.  Thereafter 
he  was  never  again  heard  of  in  Wiltshire  or 
in  the  pages  of  history,  and  wTith  his  disappear- 
ance came  an  end  to  the  knockings,  the  corpse 
candles,  and  all  the  other  uncanny  phenomena 
that  had  made  life  a  ceaseless  nightmare  for 
the  Mompessons. 

Such  is  the  astonishing  story  of  the  drummer 
of  Tedworth,  still  cited  by  the  superstitious 
as  a  capital  example  of  the  intermeddling  of 
superhuman  agencies  in  human  affairs,  and 
still  mentioned  by  the  skeptical  as  one  of  the 
most  amusing  and  most  successful  hoaxes 
on  record. 

To  us  of  the  twentieth  century  its  chief 
significance  lies  in  the  striking  resemblance 
between  the  tribulations  of  the  Mompesson 
family  and  the  so-called  physical  phenomena 
of  modern  spiritism.  All  who  have  attended 


The  Drummer  of  Tedworth  27 

spiritistic  seances  are  familiar  with  the  in- 
visible and  perverse  ghost,  which,  for  no 
apparent  reason  other  than  to  mystify,  causes 
furniture  to  gyrate  violently,  rings  bells,  plays 
tambourines,  levitates  the  "medium,"  and 
favors  the  spectators  with  sundry  taps,  pinches, 
even  blows.  Precisely  thus  was  it  with  the 
doings  at  Mompesson  House,  where  many 
of  the  salient  phenomena  of  modern  spirit- 
ism were  anticipated  nearly  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago. 

The  inference  is  irresistible  that  a  more  or 
less  intimate  connection  exists  between  the 
disturbances  at  Tedworth  and  the  triumphs 
of  latter-day  mediumship,  and  it  thus  becomes 
doubly  interesting  to  examine  the  evidence  for 
and  against  the  supernatural  origin  of  the 
performances  that  so  perplexed  the  English- 
men of  the  Restoration.  This  evidence  is 
presented  in  far  greater  detail  than  is  here 
possible,  in  a  curious  document  written  by  the 
Reverend  Joseph  Glanvill,  a  clergyman  of 
the  Church  of  England  and  an  eye  witness  of 
some  of  the  phenomena.  His  point  of  view 
is  that  of  an  ardent  believer  in  the  verity  of 
witchcraft,  and  his  narrative  of  the  Tedworth 
affair  finds  place  in  a  treatise  designed  to  dis- 


28       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

comfit  those  irreligious  persons  who  main- 
tained the  opposite.*  It  is  therefore  evident 
that  his  account  of  the  case  is  to  be  regarded 
as  a  piece  of  special  pleading,  and  as  such  must 
be  received  with  critical  caution. 

The  need  for  caution  is  further  empha- 
sized by  the  important  circumstance  that  of 
all  the  phenomena  described,  only  those  most 
susceptible  of  mundane  interpretation  were 
witnessed  by  Glanvill  or  Mompesson.  All  of 
the  more  extraordinary  —  the  great  body  with 
the  red  and  glaring  eyes,  the  levitated  chil- 
dren, etc.  —  came  to  the  narrator  from  second 
or  third  or  fourth  hand  sources  not  always 
clearly  indicated,  and  doubtless  uneducated 
and  superstitious  persons,  such  as  peasants 
or  servants,  whose  fears  would  lend  wings  to 
their  imagination. 

Keeping  these  facts  before  us,  what  do  we 

*  Glanvill's  "Sadducismus  Triumphatus,"  a  most  instructive  and 
entertaining  contribution  to  the  literature  of  witchcraft.  Contem- 
porary opinion  of  Glanvill  is  well  expressed  in  Anthony  a  Wood's 
statement  that  "he  was  a  person  of  more  than  ordinary  parts,  of  a 
quick,  warm,  spruce,  and  gay  fancy,  and  was  more  lucky,  at  least  in 
his  own  judgment,  in  his  first  hints  and  thoughts  of  things,  than  in  his 
after  notions,  examined  and  digested  by  longer  and  more  mature 
deliberation.  He  had  a  very  tenacious  memory,  and  was  a  great 
master  of  the  English  language,  expressing  himself  therein  with  easy 
fluency,  and  in  a  manly,  yet  withal  a  clear  style."  Glanvill  died  in 
1680  at  the  early  age  of  forty-four. 


The  Drummer  of  Tedworth  29 

find?  We  find  that,  so  far  from  supporting 
the  supernatural  view,  the  evidence  points  to 
a  systematic  course  of  fraud  and  deceit  carried 
out,  not  by  the  drummer,  not  by  Mompesson 
and  Glanvill  (as  many  of  that  generation  were 
unkind  enough  to  suggest),  not  by  the  Mom- 
pesson servants,  but  by  the  Mompesson  chil- 
dren, and  particularly  by  the  oldest  child,  a 
girl  of  ten. 

It  was  about  the  children  that  the  disturb- 
ances centered,  it  was  in  their  room  that  the 
manifestations  ^usually  took  place,  and  — 
what  should  have  served  to  direct  suspicion 
to  them  at  once  —  when,  in  the  hope  of  afford- 
ing them  relief,  their  father  separated  them, 
sending  the  youngest  to  lodge  with  a  neighbor 
and  taking  the  oldest  into  his  own  room,  it 
was  remarked  that  the  neighbor's  house  imme- 
diately became  the  scene  of  demoniac  activity, 
as  did  the  Squire's  apartment,  which  had 
previously  been  virtually  undisturbed.  Here 
and  now  developed  a  phenomenon  that  places 
little  Miss  Mompesson  on  a  par  with  the  cele- 
brated Fox  sisters,  for  her  father's  bed  cham- 
ber was  turned  into  a  seance  room  in  which 
messages  were  rapped  out  very  much  as  mes- 
sages have  been  rapped  out  ever  since  the 


30      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

fateful  night  in  1848  that  saw  modern  spirit- 
ism ushered  into  the  world. 

Glanvill's  personal  testimony,  the  most 
precise  and  circumstantial  in  the  entire  case, 
strongly,  albeit  unwittingly,  supports  this  view 
of  the  affair.  It  appears  that  he  passed  only 
one  night  in  the  haunted  house,  and  of  his 
several  experiences  there  is  none  that  cannot  be 
set  down  to  fraud  plus  imagination,  with  the 
children  the  active  agents.  Witness  the  fol- 
lowing from  his  story  of  what  he  heard  and  be- 
held in  the  oft-mentioned  "children's  room": 

"At  this  time  it  used  to  haunt  the  children, 
and  that  as  soon  as  they  were  laid.  They 
went  to  bed  the  night  I  was  there  about  eight 
of  the  clock,  when  a  maid  servant,  coming 
down  from  them,  told  us  that  it  was  come. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Mompesson  and  I  and  a  gentleman 
that  came  with  me  went  up.  I  heard  a  strange 
scratching  as  I  went  up  the  stairs,  and  when 
we  came  into  the  room  I  perceived  it  was  just 
behind  the  bolster  of  the  children's  bed  and 
seemed  to  be  against  the  tick.  It  was  as  loud 
a  scratching  as  one  with  long  nails  could  make 
upon  a  bolster.  There  were  two  modest  little 
girls  in  the  bed,  between  seven  and  eight  years 
old,  as  I  guessed.  I  saw  their  hands  out  of 


The  Drummer  of  Tedworth  31 

the  clothes,  and  they  could  not  contribute  to 
the  noise  that  was  behind  their  heads.  They 
had  been  used  to  it  and  still  *  had  somebody  or 
other  in  the  chamber  with  them,  and  therefore 
seemed  not  to  be  much  affrighted. 

"I,  standing  at  the  bed's  head,  thrust  my 
hand  behind  the  bolster,  directing  it  to  the 
place  whence  the  noise  seemed  to  come. 
Whereupon  the  noise  ceased  there,  and  was 
heard  in  another  part  of  the  bed;  but  when  I 
had  taken  out  my  hand  it  returned  and  was 
heard  in  the  same  place  as  before.-^  I  had  been 
told  it  would  imitate  noises,  and  made  trial 
by  scratching  several  times  upon  the  sheet,  as 
five,  and  seven,  and  ten,  which  it  followed, 
and  still  stopped  at  my  number.  I  searched 
under  and  behind  the  bed,  turned  up  the 
clothes  to  the  bed  cords,  grasped  the  bolster, 
sounded  the  wall  behind,  and  made  all  the 
search  that  possibly  I  could,  to  find  if  there 
were  any  trick,  contrivance,  or  common  cause 
of  it.  The  like  did  my  friend,  but  we  could 
discover  nothing. 

"So  that  I  was  then  verily  persuaded,  and 
am  so  still,  that  the  noise  was  made  by  some 
demon  or  spirit." 

*  Used  here  in  the  sense  of  "  always."     f  The  Italics  are  mine. 


32      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

Doubtless  his  countenance  betrayed  the 
receptiveness  of  his  mind,  and  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  naughty  little  girls  proceeded 
to  work  industriously  upon  his  imagination. 
He  speaks  of  having  heard  under  the  bed  a 
panting  sound,  which,  he  is  certain,  caused 
"a  motion  so  strong  that  it  shook  the  room 
and  windows  very  sensibly";  and  it  also 
appears  that  he  was  induced  to  believe  that 
he  saw  something  moving  in  a  "linen  bag" 
hanging  in  the  room,  which  bag,  on  being 
emptied,  was  found  to  contain  nothing  ani- 
mate. Therefore  —  spirits  again !  After  bid- 
ding the  children  good  night  and  retiring  to 
the  room  set  apart  for  him,  he  was  wakened 
from  a  sound  sleep  by  a  tremendous  knocking 
on  his  door,  and  to  his  terrified  inquiry,  "In 
the  name  of  God,  who  is  it,  and  what  would  you 
have?"  received  the  not  wholly  reassuring 
reply,  "Nothing  with  you."  In  the  morning, 
when  he  spoke  of  the  incident  and  re- 
marked that  he  supposed  a  servant  must  have 
rapped  at  the  wrong  door,  he  learned  to  his 
profound  astonishment  that  "no  one  of  the 
house  lay  that  way  or  had  business  there- 
about." This  being  so,  it  could  not  possibly 
have  been  anything  but  a  ghost. 


The  Drummer  of  Tedworth  33 

Thus  runs  the  argument  of  the  super- 
stitious clergyman.  And  all  the  while,  we  may 
feel  tolerably  sure,  little  Miss  Mompesson  was 
chuckling  inwardly  at  the  panic  into  which 
she  had  thrown  the  reverend  gentleman. 

If  it  be  objected  that  no  girl  of  ten  could 
successfully  execute  such  a  sustained  impos- 
ture, one  need  only  point  to  the  many  instances 
in  which  children  of  equally  tender  years  or 
little  older  have  since  ventured  on  similar 
mystifications,  with  even  more  startling  re- 
sults. Incredible  as  it  may  seem  to  those 
who  have  not  looked  into  the  subject,  it  is  a 
fact  that  there  are  boys  and  girls  —  especially 
girls  —  who  take  a  morbid  delight  in  playing 
pranks  that  will  astound  and  perplex  their 
elders.  The  mere  suggestion  that  Satan  or  a 
discarnate  spirit  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  mis- 
chief will  then  act  as  a  powerful  stimulus  to 
the  elaboration  of  even  more  sensational  per- 
formances, and  the  result,  if  detection  does 
not  soon  occur,  will  be  a  full-fledged  "polter- 
geist," as  the  crockery-breaking,  furniture- 
throwing  ghost  is  technically  called. 

The  singular  affair  of  Hetty  Wesley,  which 
we  shall  take  up  next,  is  a  case  in  point.  So, 


34      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

too,  is  the  history  of  the  Fox  sisters,  who  were 
extremely  juvenile  when  they  discovered  the 
possibilities  latent  in  the  properly  manipu- 
lated rap  and  knock.  And  the  spirits  who 
so  maliciously  disturbed  the  peace  of  good 
old  Dr.  Phelps  in  Stratford,  Connecticut,  a 
half  century  and  more  ago,  unquestionably 
owed  their  being  to  the  nimble  wit  and  abnor- 
mal fancy  of  his  two  step-children,  aged  six- 
teen and  eleven. 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  further,  that  con- 
temporary conditions  were  exceptionally  favor- 
able to  the  success  of  the  Tedworth  hoax. 
In  all  likelihood  the  children  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  first  alarm,  the  alarm  that  occurred 
during  Mompesson's  absence  in  London;  and 
possibly  the  second  was  only  a  rude  practical 
joke  by  some  village  lads  who  had  heard  of 
the  first  and  wished  to  put  the  Squire's  courage 
to  a  test.  But  once  the  little  Mompessons 
learned,  or  suspected,  that  their  father  asso- 
ciated the  noises  with  the  vagrant  drummer, 
a  wide  vista  of  enjoyment  would  open  before 
their  mischief -loving  minds.  Entering  on  a 
career  of  mystification,  they  would  find  the 
road  made  easy  by  the  gullibility  of  those 
about  them;  and  the  chances  are  that  had  they 


The  Drummer  of  Tedworth  35 

been  caught  in  flagrante  delicto  they  would 
have  put  in  the  plea  that  fraudulent  mediums 
so  frequently  offer  to-day  —  "An  evil  spirit 
took  possession  of  me."  As  it  was,  the  super- 
stition of  the  times  —  and  doubtless  the  rats 
and  shaky  timbers  of  Mompesson  House  did 
their  part  —  was  their  constant  and  unfailing 
support.  Everything  that  happened  would 
be  magnified  and  distorted  by  the  witnesses, 
either  at  the  moment  or  in  retrospect,  until 
in  the  end  the  Rev.  Mr.  Glanvill,  recording 
honestly  enough  what  he  himself  had  seen, 
could  find  material  for  a  history  of  the  most 
marvelous  marvels. 

In  short,  the  more  closely  one  examines  the 
details  of  the  Tedworth  mystery,  the  more 
will  he  find  himself  in  agreement  with  George 
Cruikshank's  brutally  frank  opinion: 

"All  this  seems  very  strange,  about  this  drummer  and  his 

drum; 
But  for  myself  I  really  think  this  drumming  ghost  was  all 

a  hum." 


m 

THE  HAUNTING  OF  THE  WESLEYS 

THE  REV.  SAMUEL  WESLEY  is 
chiefly  known  to  posterity  as  the  father 
of  the  famous  John  Wesley,  the  founder  of 
Methodism,  and  of  the  hardly  less  famous 
Charles  WTesley.  But  the  Rev.  Samuel  has 
further  claims  to  remembrance.  If  he  gave 
to  the  world  John  and  Charles  Wesley,  he 
was  also  the  sire  of  seventeen  other  Wesleys, 
eight  of  whom,  like  their  celebrated  brothers, 
grew  to  maturity  and  attained  varying  degrees 
of  distinction. 

He  was  himself  a  man  of  distinction  as 
preacher,  poet,  and  controversialist.  His  ser- 
mons were  sermons  in  the  good,  old-fashioned 
sense  of  the  term.  His  poems  were  the 
despair  of  the  critics,  but  won  him  a  wide 
reputation.  He  was  an  adept  in  what  Whis- 
tler called  the  gentle  art  of  making  enemies. 
Though  more  familiar  with  the  inside  of  a 
pulpit,  he  was  not  unacquainted  with  the  in- 
side of  a  jail.  He  raised  his  numerous  progeny 

86 


The  Haunting  of  the  Wesleys  37 

on  an  income  seldom  exceeding  one  thousand 
dollars  a  year.  And,  what  is  perhaps  the 
most  astonishing  fact  in  a  career  replete  with 
surprises,  he  was  the  hero  of  one  of  the  best 
authenticated  ghost  stories  on  record. 

This  visitation  from  the  supermundane 
came  as  a  climax  to  a  series  of  worldly  annoy- 
ances that  would  have  upset  the  equanimity 
of  a  very  Job  —  and  the  Rev.  Samuel,  in 
temper  at  any  rate,  was  the  reverse  of  Job-like. 
His  troubles  began  in  the  closing  years  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  when  he  became  rector 
of  the  established  church  at  Epworth,  Lincoln- 
shire, a  venerable  edifice  dating  back  to  the 
stormy  days  of  Edward  II.,  and  as  damp  as 
it  was  old.  The  story  goes  that  this  living 
was  granted  him  as  a  reward  because  he  dedi- 
cated one  of  his  poems  to  Queen  Mary.  But 
the  Queen  would  seem  to  have  had  punish- 
ment in  mind  for  him,  rather  than  reward. 

Located  in  the  Isle  of  Axholme,  in  the 
midst  of  a  long  stretch  of  fen  country  bounded 
by  four  rivers,  and  for  a  great  part  under 
water,  Epworth  was  at  that  epoch  dreariness 
itself.  The  Rev.  Samuel's  spirits  must  have 
sunk  within  him  as  the  carts  bearing  his 
already  large  family  and  his  few  household 


38       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

belongings  toiled  through  quagmire  and 
morass;  they  must  have  fallen  still  farther 
when  he  gazed  down  the  one  straggling  street 
at  the  rectory  of  mud  and  thatch  that  was  to 
be  his  home;  and  they  must  have  touched 
the  zero  mark,  zealous  High  Churchman  that 
he  was,  with  the  discovery  that  his  peasant 
parishioners  were  Presbyterian-minded  folk 
who  hated  ritualism  as  cordially  as  they  hated 
the  Pope. 

Whatever  his  secret  sentiments,  he  lost  no 
time  in  endeavoring  to  stamp  the  imprint  of 
his  vigorous  personality  on  Epworth.  For- 
getful, or  unheedful,  of  the  fact  that  the 
natives  of  the  Isle  of  Axholme  were  notoriously 
violent  and  lawless,  he  began  to  rule  them 
with  a  rod  of  iron.  Thus  they  should  think, 
thus  they  should  do,  thus  they  should  go! 
Above  all,  the  Rev.  Samuel  never  permitted 
them  to  forget  that  in  addition  to  spiritual 
they  owed  him  temporal  obligations.  In  the 
matter  of  tithes  —  always  a  sore  subject  in  a 
community  hard  put  to  extract  a  living  from 
the  soil  —  he  was  unrelenting. 

Necessity  may  have  driven  him;  but  it  was 
only  to  be  expected  that  murmurings  should 
arise,  and  from  words  the  angry  islanders 


The  Haunting  o}  the  Wesleys          39 

passed  to  deeds.  For  a  time  they  contented 
themselves  with  burning  the  rector's  barn 
and  trying  to  burn  his  house.  Then,  when  he 
was  so  indiscreet  as  to  become  indebted  to 
one  of  their  number,  they  clapped  him  into 
prison.  His  speedy  release,  through  the  inter- 
vention of  clerical  friends,  and  his  blunt 
refusal  to  seek  a  new  sphere  of  activity,  were 
followed  by  more  barn  burning,  by  the 
slaughter  of  his  cattle,  and  finally  by  a  fire 
that  utterly  destroyed  the  rectory  and  all 
but  cost  the  lives  of  several  of  its  inmates, 
who  by  that  time  included  the  future  father 
of  Methodism. 

The  bravery  with  which  the  Rev.  Samuel 
met  this  crowning  disaster,  and  the  energy 
with  which  he  set  about  the  task  of  rebuilding 
his  home  —  not  in  mud  and  thatch,  but  in 
substantial  brick  —  seem  to  have  shamed  the 
villagers  into  giving  him  peace,  seem  even  to 
have  inspired  them  with  a  genuine  regard  for 
him.  He  for  his  part,  if  we  read  the  difficult 
pages  of  his  biographers  aright,  appears  to 
have  grown  less  exacting  and  more  diplomatic. 
In  any  event,  he  was  left  in  quiet  to  prepare 
his  sermons,  write  his  poems,  and  assist  his 
devoted  wife  (who,  by  the  way,  he  is  said  to 


40      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

have  deserted  for  an  entire  year  because  of 
a  little  difference  of  opinion  respecting  the 
right  of  William  of  Orange  to  the  English 
crown)  in  the  upbringing  of  their  children. 
Thus  his  life  ran  along  in  comparative  smooth- 
ness until  the  momentous  advent  of  the 
ghost. 

This  unexpected  and  unwelcome  visitor 
made  its  first  appearance  early  in  December, 
1716.  At  the  time  the  Wesley  boys  were  away 
from  home,  but  the  household  was  still 
sufficiently  numerous,  consisting  of  the  Rev. 
Samuel,  Mrs.  Wesley,  seven  daughters,  — 
Emilia,  Susannah,  Maria,  Mehetabel,  Anne, 
Martha,  and  Kezziah,  —  a  man  servant 
named  Robert  Brown,  and  a  maid  servant 
known  as  Nanny  Marshall.  Nanny  was  the 
first  to  whom  the  ghost  paid  its  respects,  in 
a  series  of  blood-curdling  groans  that  "caused 
the  upstarting  of  her  hair,  and  made  her  ears 
prick  forth  at  an  unusual  rate."  In  modern 
parlance,  she  was  greatly  alarmed,  and  has- 
tened to  tell  the  Misses  Wesley  of  the  ex- 
traordinary noises,  which,  she  assured  them, 
sounded  exactly  like  the  groans  of  a  dying 
man.  The  derisive  laughter  of  the  young 
women  left  her  state  of  mind  unchanged; 


The  Haunting  of  the  Wesley s          41 

and  they  too  gave  way  to  alarm  when,  a  night 
or  so  later,  loud  knocks  began  to  be  heard 
in  different  parts  of  the  house,  accompanied 
by  sundry  "groans,  squeaks,  and  tinglings." 

Oddly  enough,  the  only  member  of  the 
family  unvisited  by  the  ghost  was  the  Rev. 
Samuel,  and  upon  learning  that  he  had  heard 
none  of  the  direful  sounds  his  wife  and  children 
made  up  their  minds  that  his  death  was  im- 
minent; for  a  local  superstition  had  it  that  in 
all  such  cases  of  haunting  the  person  undis- 
turbed is  marked  for  an  early  demise.  But 
the  worthy  clergyman  continued  hale  and 
hearty,  as  did  the  ghost,  whose  knockings, 
indeed,  soon  grew  so  terrifying  that  "few  or 
none  of  the  family  durst  be  alone."  It  was 
then  resolved  that,  whatever  the  noises  por- 
tended, counsel  and  aid  must  be  sought  from 
the  head  of  the  household.  At  first  the  Rev. 
Samuel  listened  in  silence  to  his  spouse's  re- 
cital; but  as  she  proceeded  he  burst  into  a 
storm  of  wrath.  A  ghost?  Stuff  and  non- 
sense! Not  a  bit  of  it!  Only  some  mis- 
chief-makers bent  on  plaguing  them.  Possibly, 
and  his  choler  rose  higher,  a  trick  played  by 
his  daughters  themselves,  or  by  their  lovers. 

Now  it  was  the  turn  of  the  Wesley  girls  to 


42      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

become  angry,  and  we  read  that  they  forth- 
with showed  themselves  exceedingly  "desirous 
of  its  continuance  till  he  was  convinced." 
Their  desire  was  speedily  granted.  The  very 
next  night  paterfamilias  had  no  sooner  tumbled 
into  bed  than  there  came  nine  resounding 
knocks  "just  by  his  bedside."  In  an  instant 
he  was  up  and  groping  for  a  light.  "You 
heard  it,  then  ?"  we  may  imagine  Mrs.  Wesley 
anxiously  asking,  and  we  may  also  imagine 
the  robust  Anglo-Saxon  of  his  response. 

Another  night  and  more  knockings,  fol- 
lowed by  "a  noise  in  the  room  over  our  heads, 
as  if  several  people  were  walking."  This 
time,  to  quote  further  from  Mrs.  Wesley's 
narrative  as  given  in  a  letter  to  her  absent 
son  Samuel,  the  tumult  "was  so  outrageous 
that  we  thought  the  children  would  be  fright- 
ened; so  your  father  and  I  rose,  and  went 
down  in  the  dark  to  light  a  candle.  Just  as 
we  came  to  the  bottom  of  the  broad  stairs, 
having  hold  of  each  other,  on  my  side  there 
seemed  as  if  somebody  had  emptied  a  bag 
of  money  at  my  feet;  and  on  his,  as  if  all  the 
bottles  under  the  stairs  (which  were  many) 
had  been  dashed  in  a  thousand  pieces.  We 
passed  through  the  hall  into  the  kitchen,  and 


The  Haunting  of  the  Wesleys          43 

got  a  candle  and  went  to  see  the  children, 
whom  we  found  asleep." 

With  this  the  Rev.  Samuel  seems  to  have 
come  round  to  the  family's  way  of  thinking; 
for  in  the  morning  he  sent  a  messenger  to  the 
nearby  village  of  Haxey  with  the  request 
that  the  vicar  of  Haxey,  a  certain  Mr.  Hoole, 
would  ride  over  and  assist  him  in  "conjuring" 
the  evil  spirit  out  of  his  house.  Burning  with 
curiosity,  Mr.  Hoole  made  such  good  time  to 
Epworth  that  before  noon  he  was  at  the 
rectory  and  eagerly  listening  to  an  account  of 
the  marvels  that  had  so  alarmed  the  Wesleys. 
In  addition  to  the  phenomena  already  set 
forth,  he  learned  that  while  the  knocks  were 
heard  in  all  parts  of  the  house,  they  were 
most  frequent  in  the  children's  room;  that  at 
prayers  they  almost  invariably  interrupted 
the  family's  devotions,  especially  when  Mr  .Wes- 
ley began  the  prayers  for  King  George  and  the 
Prince  of  WTales,  from  which  it  was  inferred 
that  the  ghost  was  a  Jacobite;  that  often  a 
sound  was  heard  like  the  rocking  of  a  cradle, 
and  another  sound  like  the  gobbling  of  a 
turkey,  and  yet  another  "something  like  a 
man,  in  a  loose  nightgown  trailing  after  him"; 
and  that  if  one  stamped  his  foot,  "Old 


44      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

Jeffrey,"  as  the  younger  children  had  named 
the  ghost,  would  knock  precisely  as  many 
times  as  there  had  been  stampings. 

None  of  these  major  marvels  was  vouch- 
safed to  Mr.Hoole;  but  he  heard  knockings  in 
plenty,  and,  after  a  night  of  terror,  made  haste 
back  to  Haxey,  having  lost  all  desire  to  play 
the  role  of  exorcist.  His  fears  may  possibly 
have  been  increased  by  the  violence  of  Mr. 
Wesley,  who,  after  vainly  exhorting  the  ghost  to 
speak  out  and  tell  his  business,  flourished  a 
pistol  and  threatened  to  discharge  it  in  the 
direction  whence  the  knockings  came.  This 
was  too  much  for  peace-loving,  spook-fearing 
Mr.  Hoole.  "Sir,"  he  protested,  "y°u  are  con- 
vinced this  is  something  preternatural.  If 
so,  you  cannot  hurt  it;  but  you  give  it  power 
to  hurt  you."  The  logic  of  Mr.  Hoole's  argu- 
ment is  hardly  so  evident  as  his  panic.  Off 
he  galloped,  leaving  the  Rev.  Samuel  to  lay 
the  ghost  as  best  he  could. 

After  his  departure  wonders  grew  apace. 
Thus  far  the  manifestations  had  been  wholly 
auditory;  now  visual  phenomena  were  added. 
One  evening  Mrs.  Wesley  beheld  something 
dart  out  from  beneath  a  bed  and  quickly 
disappear.  Sister  Emilia,  who  was  present, 


The  Haunting  of  the  Wesleys          45 

reported  to  brother  Samuel  that  this  some- 
thing was  "like  a  badger,  only  without  any 
head  that  wras  discernible."  The  same  ap- 
parition came  to  confound  the  man  servant, 
Robert  Brown,  once  in  the  badger  form,  and 
once  in  the  form  of  a  white  rabbit  which 
"turned  round  before  him  several  times." 
Robert  was  also  the  witness  of  an  even  more 
peculiar  performance  by  the  elusive  ghost. 
"Being  grinding  corn  in  the  garrets,  and 
happening  to  stop  a  little,  the  handle  of  the 
mill  was  turn  [sic]  round  with  great  swift- 
ness." It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Robert 
subsequently  declared  that  "nothing  vexed 
him  but  that  the  mill  was  empty.  If  corn 
had  been  in  it,  Old  Jeffrey  might  have  ground 
his  heart  out  for  him;  he  would  never  have 
disturbed  him."  More  annoying  was  a  habit 
into  which  the  ghost  fell  of  rattling  latches, 
jingling  warming  pans  and  other  metal  uten- 
sils, and  brushing  rudely  against  people  in  the 
dark.  "Thrice,"  asserted  the  Rev.  Samuel, 
"I  have  been  pushed  by  an  invisible  power, 
once  against  the  corner  of  my  desk  in  the 
study,  a  second  time  against  the  door  of 
the  matted  chamber,  a  third  time  against 
the  right  side  of  the  frame  of  my  study  door." 


46       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

On  at  least  one  occasion  Old  Jeffrey  in- 
dulged in  a  pastime  popular  with  the  spirit- 
istic mediums  of  a  later  day.  John  Wesley 
tells  us,  on  the  authority  of  sister  Nancy, 
that  one  night,  when  she  was  playing  cards 
with  some  of  the  many  other  sisters,  the  bed 
on  which  she  sat  was  suddenly  lifted  from  the 
ground.  "She  leapt  down  and  said,  *  Surely 
Old  Jeffrey  would  not  run  away  with  her.' 
However,  they  persuaded  her  to  sit  down  again, 
which  she  had  scarce  done  when  it  was  again 
lifted  up  several  times  successively,  a  con- 
siderable height,  upon  which  she  left  her  seat 
and  would  not  be  prevailed  upon  to  sit  there 
any  more." 

Clearly,  the  Wesley  family  were  in  a  bad 
way.  Entreaties,  threats,  exorcism,  had  alike 
failed  to  banish  the  obstinate  ghost.  But 
though  they  knew  it  not,  relief  was  at  hand. 
Whether  repenting  of  his  misdoings,  or 
desirous  of  seeking  pastures  new,  Jeffrey, 
after  a  visitation  lasting  nearly  two  months, 
took  his  departure  almost  as  unceremoniously 
as  he  had  arrived,  and  left  the  unhappy 
Wesleys  to  resume  by  slow  degrees  their 
wonted  ways  of  life. 


The  Haunting  of  the  Wesleys          47 

Such  is  the  story  unfolded  by  the  Wesleys 
themselves  in  a  series  of  letters  and  memo- 
randa, which,  taken  together,  form,  as  was 
said,  one  of  the  best  authenticated  narratives 
of  haunting  extant.  But  before  endeavoring 
to  ascertain  the  source  of  the  phenomena 
credited  to  the  soi-disant  Jeffrey,  another  and 
fully  as  important  inquiry  must  be  made. 
What,  it  is  necessary  to  ask,  did  the  Wesleys 
actually  hear  and  see  in  the  course  of  the  two 
months  that  they  had  their  ghost  with  them  ? 
The  answer  obviously  must  be  sought  through 
an  analysis  of  the  evidence  for  the  haunting. 
This  chronologically  falls  into  three  divisions. 
The  first  consists  of  letters  addressed  to  young 
Samuel  Wesley  by  his  father,  mother,  and  two 
of  his  sisters,  and  written  at  the  time  of  the 
disturbances;  the  second,  of  letters  written 
by  Mrs.  Wesley  and  four  of  her  daughters 
to  John  Wesley  in  the  summer  and  autumn 
of  1726  (that  is  to  say,  more  than  nine  years 
after  the  haunting),  of  an  account  written 
by  the  senior  Samuel  Wesley,  and  of  state- 
ments by  Hoole  and  Robert  Brown;  the  third, 
of  an  article  contributed  to  "The  Arminian 
Magazine"  in  1784  (nearly  seventy  years 
after  the  event)  by  John  Wesley. 


v 


48       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

Now,  the  most  cursory  examination  of  the 
various  documents  shows  remarkable  dis- 
crepancies between  the  earlier  and  later  ver- 
sions. Writing  to  her  son  Samuel,  when  the 
ghost  was  still  active,  and  she  would  not  be 
likely  to  minimize  its  doings,  Mrs.  Wesley 
thus  describes  the  first  occurrences: 

"On  the  first  of  December,  our  maid  heard, 
at  the  door  of  the  dining-room,  several  dismal 
groans  like  a  person  in  extremes,  at  the  point 
of  death.  We  gave  little  heed  to  her  relation 
and  endeavored  to  laugh  her  out  of  her  fears. 
Some  nights  (two  or  three)  after,  several  of 
the  family  heard  a  strange  knocking  in  divers 
places,  usually  three  or  four  knocks  at  a  time, 
and  then  stayed  a  little.  This  continued 
every  night  for  a  fortnight;  sometimes  it  was 
in  the  garret,  but  most  commonly  in  the 
nursery,  or  green  chamber." 

Contrast  with  this  the  portion  of  John 
Wesley's  "Arminian  Magazine"  article  refer- 
ring to  the  same  period: 

"On  the  second  of  December,  1716,  while 
Robert  Brown,  my  father's  servant,  was  sitting 
with  one  of  the  maids,  a  little  before  ten  at 
night,  in  the  dining-room  which  opened  into 
the  garden,  they  both  heard  one  knocking 


The  Haunting  of  the  Wesleys          49 

at  the  door.  Robert  rose  and  opened  it,  but 
could  see  nobody.  Quickly  it  knocked  again 
and  groaned.  .  .  .  He  opened  the  door  again 
twice  or  thrice,  the  knocking  being  twice  or 
thrice  repeated;  but  still  seeing  nothing,  and 
being  a  little  startled,  they  rose  and  went  up 
to  bed.  When  Robert  came  to  the  top  of  the 
garret  stairs,  he  saw  a  handmill,  which  was 
at  a  little  distance,  whirled  about  very  swiftly. 
.  .  .  When  he  was  in  bed,  he  heard  as  it  were 
the  gobbling  of  a  turkey  cock  close  to  the  bed- 
side; and  soon  after,  the  sound  of  one  stum- 
bling over  his  shoes  and  boots ;  but  there  were 
none  there,  he  had  left  them  below.  .  .  .  The 
next  evening,  between  five  and  six  o'clock, 
my  sister  Molly,  then  about  twenty  years  of 
age,  sitting  in  the  dining-room  reading,  heard 
as  if  it  were  the  door  that  led  into  the  hall 
open,  and  a  person  walking  in,  that  seemed 
to  have  on  a  silk  nightgown,  rustling  and 
trailing  along.  It  seemed  to  walk  round  her, 
then  to  the  door,  then  round  again;  but  she 
could  see  nothing." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  contemporary 
records  are  silent  respecting  the  extraordinary 
happenings  that  overshadow  all  else  in  the 
records  of  1726  and  1784.  In  the  former,  for 


50      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

example,  we  find  no  reference  to  the  affair  of 
the  mill  handle,  the  levitation  of  the  bed,  the 
rude  bumpings  given  to  Mr.  Wesley.  There 
is  much  talk  of  knockings  and  groanings,  of 
sounds  like  footsteps,  rustling  silks,  falling 
coals,  breaking  bottles,  and  moving  latches; 
allusion  is  made  to  the  badger  like  and  rabbit 
like  apparition;  and  there  is  mention  of  a 
peculiar  dancing  of  father's  "trencher"  with- 
out "anybody's  stirring  the  table";  but  the 
sum  total  makes  very  tame  reading  compared 
with  the  material  to  be  found  in  the  accounts 
written  in  after  years  and  commonly  utilized 
—  as  it  has  been  utilized  here  —  to  form  the 
narrative  of  the  haunting.  Not  only  this,  but 
a  rigorous  division  of  the  contemporary  evi- 
dence into  first  hand  and  second  hand  still 
further  eliminates  the  element  of  the  marvel- 
ous. Admitting  as  evidence  only  the  fact 
set  forth  as  having  been  observed  by  the  rela- 
tors  themselves,  the  haunting  is  reduced  to  a 
matter  of  knocks,  groans,  tinglings,  squeaks, 
creakings,  crashings,  and  footsteps. 

We  are,  therefore,  justified  in  believing  that 
in  this  case,  like  so  many  others  of  its  kind, 
the  fallibility  of  human  memory  has  played 
an  overwhelming  part  in  exaggerating  the 


The  Haunting  of  the  Wesley s          51 

experiences  actually  undergone;  that,  in  fine, 
nothing  occurred  in  the  rectory  at  Epworth, 
between  December  1,  1716,  and  January  31, 
1717,  that  may  not  be  attributed  to  human 
agency. 

Who,  then,  was  the  agent  ?  Knowing  what 
we  do  of  Wesley's  previous  relations  with  the 
villagers,  the  first  impulse  is  to  place  the  re- 
sponsibility at  their  door.  But  for  this  there 
is  no  real  warrant.  Years  had  elapsed  since 
the  culminating  catastrophe  of  the  burning  of 
the  rectory,  and  in  the  interim  matters  had 
been  put  on  an  amicable  basis.  Moreover, 
the  evidence  as  to  the  haunting  itself  goes  to 
show  that  the  phenomena  could  not  possibly 
have  been  produced  by  a  person,  or  persons,  op- 
erating from  outdoors;  but  must,  on  the 
contrary,  have  been  the  work  of  some  one 
intimately  acquainted  with  the  arrangements 
of  the  house  and  enjoying  the  full  confidence  of 
its  master. 

Thus  our  inquiry  narrows  to  the  inmates 
of  the  rectory.  Of  these,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Wesley,  may  at  once  be  left  out  of  considera- 
tion, as  also  may  the  servants,  all  accounts 
agreeing  that  from  the  outset  they  were  genu- 
inely alarmed.  There  remain  only  the  Wesley 


52       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

girls,  and  our  effort  must  be  to  discover  which 
of  them  was  the  culprit. 

At  first  blush  this  seems  an  impossible  task; 
but  let  us  scan  the  evidence  carefully.  We 
find,  to  begin  with,  that  only  four  of  the  seven 
sisters  are  represented  in  the  correspondence 
relating  to  the  haunting.  Two  of  the  others, 
Kezziah  and  Martha,  were  mere  children  and 
not  of  letter-writing  age,  and  their  silence  in 
the  matter  is  thus  satisfactorily  accounted 
for.  But  that  the  third,  Mehetabel,  should 
likewise  be  silent  is  distinctly  puzzling.  Not 
only  was  she  quite  able  to  give  an  account 
of  her  experiences  (she  was  at  least  between 
eighteen  and  nineteen  years  of  age),  but  it  is 
known  that  she  had  a  veritable  passion  for 
pen  and  ink,  a  passion  which  in  after  years 
won  her  no  mean  reputation  as  a  poetess. 
And,  more  than  this,  she  seems  to  have 
enjoyed  a  far  greater  share  of  Jeffrey's  atten- 
tions than  did  any  other  member  of  the 
family.  "My  sister  Hetty,  I  find,"  remarks 
the  observing  Samuel,  "was  more  particularly 
troubled."  And  Emilia  declares,  almost  in 
the  language  of  complaint,  that  "it  was  never 
near  me,  except  two  or  three  times,  and  never 
followed  me  as  it  did  my  sister  Hetty." 


The  Haunting  of  the  Wesleys          53 

Manifestly,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  in- 
quire into  the  history  and  characteristics  of 
this  young  woman,  Her  biographer,  Dr. 
Adam  Clarke,  informs  us  that  "from  her 
childhood  she  was  gay  and  sprightly;  full  of 
mirth,  good  humor,  and  keen  wit.  She  in- 
dulged this  disposition  so  much  that  it  was 
said  to  have  given  great  uneasiness  to  her 
parents ;  because  she  was  in  consequence  often 
betrayed  into  inadvertencies  which,  though 
of  small  moment  in  themselves,  showed  that 
her  mind  was  not  under  proper  discipline; 
and  that  fancy,  not  reason,  often  dictated 
that  line  of  conduct  which  she  thought  proper 
to  pursue." 

This  information  is  the  more  interesting, 
in  the  present  connection,  since  it  contrasts 
strongly  with  the  unqualified  commendation 
Dr.  Clarke  accords  the  other  sisters.  From 
the  same  authority  we  learn  that  as  a  child 
Miss  Mehetabel  was  so  precocious  that  at  the 
age  of  eight  she  could  read  the  Greek  Testa- 
ment in  the  original;  that  she  was  from  her 
earliest  youth  emotional  and  sentimental ;  that 
despite  her  intellectual  tastes  and  attain- 
ments she  gave  her  hand  to  an  illiterate 
journeyman  plumber  and  glazier;  and  that 


54       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

when  the  fruit  of  this  union  lay  dying  by  her 
side  she  insisted  on  dictating  to  her  husband 
a  poem  afterward  published  under  the  moving 
caption  of  "A  Mother's  Address  to  Her  Dying 
Infant."  Another  of  her  poems,  by  the  way,  is 
significantly  entitled,  "The  Lucid  Interval." 

There  can,  then,  be  little  question  that 
Hetty  Wesley  was  precisely  the  type  of  girl 
to  derive  amusement  by  working  on  the  super- 
stitious fears  of  those  about  her.  We  find,  too, 
in  the  evidence  itself  certain  fugitive  refer- 
ences directly  pointing  to  her  as  the  creator 
of  Old  Jeffrey.  It  seems  that  she  had  a  prac- 
tice of  sitting  up  and  moving  about  the 
house  long  after  all  the  other  inmates,  except 
her  father,  had  retired  for  the  night.  The 
ghost  was  especially  noisy  and  malevolent 
when  in  her  vicinity,  knocking  boisterously 
on  the  bed  in  which  she  slept,  and  even  knock- 
ing under  her  feet.  And  what  is  most  sug- 
gestive, two  witnesses,  her  father  and  her  sister 
Susannah,  testify  that  on  some  occasions  the 
noises  failed  to  wake  her,  but  caused  her  "to 
tremble  exceedingly  in  her  sleep."  It  must, 
indeed,  have  been  a  difficult  matter  to 
restrain  laughter  at  the  spectacle  of  the  night- 
gowned,  night-capped,  much  bewildered  par- 


The  Haunting  of  the  Wesley s          55 

son,  candle  in  one  hand  and  pistol  in  the 
other,  peering  under  and  about  the  bed  in 
quest  of  the  invisible  ghost. 

To  be  sure,  it  is  impossible  to  adduce  posi- 
tive proof  that  Hetty  Wesley  and  Old  Jeffrey 
were  one  and  the  same.  But  the  evidence 
supports  this  view  of  the  case  as  it  supports 
no  other,  and,  taken  in  conjunction  with  the 
facts  of  her  earlier  and  later  life,  leaves  little 
doubt  that  had  the  Rev.  Samuel  paid  closer 
attention  to  the  comings  and  goings  of  this 
particular  daughter  the  ghost  that  so  sorely 
tried  him  would  have  taken  its  flight  much 
sooner  than  it  did.  Her  motive  for  the  decep- 
tion must  be  left  to  conjecture.  In  all  proba- 
bility it  was  only  the  desire  to  amaze  and 
terrorize,  a  desire  as  was  said  before,  not  in- 
frequently operative  along  similar  lines  in  the 
case  of  young  people  of  a  lively  disposition 
and  morbid  imagination. 


IV 

THE  VISIONS  OF  EMANUEL  SWEDENBORG 

IN  mid  April  of  the  memorable  year  1745, 
two  men,  hastening  through  a  busy  Lon- 
don thoroughfare,  paused  for  a  moment  to 
follow  with  their  eyes  a  third,  whom  they  had 
greeted  but  who  had  passed  without  so  much 
as  a  glance  in  their  direction.  The  face  of 
one  betrayed  chagrin;  but  the  other  smiled 
amusedly. 

"You  must  not  mind,  dear  fellow,"  said 
he;  "that  is  only  Swedenborg's  way,  as  you 
will  discover  when  you  know  him  better. 
His  feet  are  on  the  earth;  but  for  the  moment 
his  mind  is  in  the  clouds,  pondering  some 
solution  to  the  wonderful  problems  he  has 
set  himself,  marvelous  man  that  he  is." 

"Yet,"  objected  the  other,  "he  seems  such 
a  thorough  man  of  the  world,  so  finely  dressed, 
so  courtly  as  a  rule  in  speech  and  manner." 

"He  is  a  man  of  the  world,  a  true  cosmo- 
politan," was  the  quick  response.  "I  war- 
rant few  are  so  widely  and  so  favorably  known. 

56 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       57 

He  is  as  much  at  home  in  London,  Paris, 
Berlin,  Dresden,  Amsterdam,  or  Copenhagen 
as  in  his  native  city  of  Stockholm.  Kings  and 
Queens,  grand  dames  and  gallant  wits,  states- 
men and  soldiers,  scientists  and  philosophers, 
find  pleasure  in  his  society.  He  can  meet  all 
on  their  own  ground,  and  to  all  he  has  some- 
thing fresh  and  interesting  to  say.  But  he  is 
nevertheless,  and  above  everything  else,  a 
dreamer." 

"A  dreamer?" 

"Aye.  They  tell  me  that  he  will  not  rest 
content  until  he  has  found  the  seat  of  the  soul 
in  man.  Up  through  mathematics,  mechanics, 
mineralogy,  astronomy,  chemistry,  even  phys- 
iology, has  he  gone,  mastering  every  science, 
in  turn,  until  he  is  now  perhaps  the  most 
'*  learned  man  in  Europe.  But  his  learning 
satisfies  him  not  a  whit,  since  the  soul  still 
eludes  him,  —  and  eludes  him,  mark  you, 
despite  month  upon  month  of  toil  in  the  dis- 
secting room.  If  the  study  of  anatomy  fail 
him,  I  know  not  where  he  will  next  turn.  For 
my  part,  I  fancy  he  need  not  look  beyond 
the  stomach.  The  wonder  is  that  his  own 
stomach  has  not  given  him  the  clue  ere  this; 
for,  metaphysician  though  he  be,  he  enjoys 


58       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

the  good  things  of  earth.  Let  me  tell  you  a 
story  —  " 

Thus,  chatting  and  laughing,  the  friends 
continued  on  their  way,  every  step  taking 
them  farther  from  the  unwitting  subject  of 
their  words.  He,  for  his  part,  absorbed  in 
thought,  pressed  steadily  forward  to  his  desti- 
nation, a  quiet  inn  in  a  sequestered  quarter 
of  the  city.  The  familiar  sounds  of  eighteenth- 
century  London  —  the  bawling  of  appren- 
tices shouting  their  masters'  wares,  the  crying 
of  fishwives,  the  quarreling  of  drunkards,  the 
barking  of  curs,  the  bellowing  of  cattle  on 
their  way  to  market  and  slaughter  house  — 
broke  unheeded  about  him. 

He  was,  as  the  gossip  had  put  it,  in  the 
clouds,  intent  on  the  riddles  his  learning  had 
rendered  only  the  more  complex,  riddles 
having  to  do  with  the  nature  of  the  universe 
and  with  man's  place  in  the  universe.  Nor 
did  he  rouse  himself  from  his  meditations 
until  the  door  of  the  inn  had  closed  behind 
him  and  he  found  himself  in  its  common 
room.  Then  he  became  the  Emanuel  Sweden- 
borg  of  benignity,  geniality,  and  courtesy,  the 
Swedenborg  whom  all  men  loved. 

"I  am  going  to  my  room,"  said  he  to  the 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       59 

innkeeper,  in  charming,  broken  English,  "and 
I  wish  to  be  served  there.  I  find  I  am  very 
hungry;  so  see  that  you  spare  not." 

While  he  is  standing  at  the  window,  waiting 
for  his  dinner,  and  gazing  abstractedly  into 
the  ill-paved,  muddy  street  illumined  by  a 
transitory  gleam  of  April  sunshine,  let  us  try 
to  gain  a  closer  view  of  him  than  that  afforded 
by  the  brief  account  of  his  unrecognized 
acquaintance.  The  attempt  will  be  worth 
while;  for  at  this  very  moment  he  has,  all 
unconsciously,  reached  the  great  crisis  of  his 
life,  and  is  about  to  leave  behind  him  the 
achievements  of  his  earlier  years,  setting  him- 
self instead  to  tasks  of  a  very  different  nature. 
We  see  him,  then,  a  man  nearing  the  age  of 
sixty,  of  rather  more  than  average  height, 
smooth  shaven,  bewigged,  bespectacled,  and 
scrupulously  dressed  according  to  the  fashion 
of  the  day.  Time  in  its  passing  has  dealt 
gently  with  him.  There  is  no  stoop  to  his 
shoulders,  no  tremor  in  the  fingers  that  play 
restlessly  on  the  window-pane.  Not  a  wrinkle 
mars  the  placid  features. 

Well  may  he  feel  at  peace  with  the  world. 
His  whole  career  has  been  a  steady  progress, 
his  record  that  of  one  who  has  attempted 


60       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

many  things  and  failed  in  few.  Before  he 
was  twenty-one  his  learning  had  gained  for 
him  a  doctorate  in  philosophy.  Then,  en- 
thusiastic, open-minded,  and  open-eyed,  he 
had  hurried  abroad,  to  pursue  in  England,  Hol- 
land, France,  and  Germany  his  chosen  studies 
of  mathematics,  mechanics,  and  astronomy. 
Returning  to  Sweden  to  assume  the  duties  of 
assessor  of  mines,  he  speedily  proved  that  he 
was  no  mere  theorizer,  his  inventive  genius 
enabling  the  warlike  Charles  XII.  to  trans- 
port overland  galleys  and  sloops  for  the  siege 
of  Frederikshald,  sea  passage  being  barred 
by  hostile  fleets.  Ennobled  for  this  feat, 
he  plunged  with  ardor  into  the  complicated 
problems  of  statecraft,  problems  rendered  the 
more  difficult  by  the  economic  distress  in 
which  Charles's  wars  had  involved  his  King- 
dom. Here  again  he  attained  distinction. 

Yet  always  the  problems  of  science  and 
philosophy  claimed  his  chief  devotion.  From 
the  study  of  stars  and  minerals  he  passed  to 
the  contemplation  of  other  marvels  of  nature 
as  revealed  in  man  himself.  And  now  behold 
him  turned  chemist,  anatomist,  physiologist, 
and  psychologist,  and  repeating  in  these  fields 
of  research  his  former  triumphs.  Still,  in- 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       61 

domitable  man,  he  refused  to  stop.  He  would 
press  on,  far  beyond  the  confines  of  what  his 
generation  held  to  be  the  knowable.  "The 
end  of  the  senses,"  to  quote  his  own  words, 
"is  that  God  may  be  seen."  He  would  peer 
into  the  innermost  recesses  of  man's  being,  to 
discern  the  soul  of  man,  mayhap  to  discern 
God  himself. 

But,  if  he  were  scientist  and  metaphysician, 
he  was  also  human,  and  that  pleasant  April 
afternoon  the  humanity  in  him  bulked  large 
when  he  finally  turned  from  the  window  and 
took  his  seat  at  the  bountifully  heaped  table. 
He  was,  as  he  had  told  the  innkeeper,  very 
hungry,  and  he  ate  with  a  zest  that  abundantly 
confirmed  his  statement.  How  pleasant  the 
odors  from  this  dish  and  that  —  how  agreeable 
the  flavor  of  everything!  Surely  he  had  never 
enjoyed  meal  more,  and  surely  he  was  no 
longer  "in  the  clouds";  but  was  instead  recall- 
ing pleasant  reminiscences  of  his  doings  in  one 
and  another  of  the  gay  capitals  of  Europe! 
There  would  be  not  a  little  to  bring  a  twinkle 
of  delight  to  his  beaming  eyes,  not  a  little  to 
soften  his  scholastic  lips  into  a  gentle  smile. 
And  so,  in  solitary  state,  he  ate  and  drank, 
with  nothing  to  warn  him  of  the  impending 


62       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

and  momentous  change  that  was  to  shape 
anew  his  career  and  his  view-point. 

Conceive  his  astonishment,  therefore,  when, 
his  dinner  still  unfinished,  he  felt  a  strange 
languor  creeping  over  him  and  a  mysterious 
obscurity  dimming  his  eyes.  Conceive,  further, 
his  horror  at  sight  of  the  floor  about  him 
covered  with  frogs  and  toads  and  snakes  and 
creeping  things.  And  picture,  finally,  his 
amazement  when,  the  darkness  that  enveloped 
him  suddenly  clearing,  he  beheld  a  man  sit- 
ting in  the  far  corner  of  the  room  and  eying 
him,  as  it  seemed,  reproachfully,  even  dis- 
dainfully. 

In  vain,  he  essayed  to  rise,  to  lift  his  hand, 
to  speak.  Invisible  bonds  held  him  in  his 
chair,  an  unseen  power  kept  him  mute. 
For  an  instant  he  fancied  that  he  must  be 
dreaming;  but  the  noises  from  outdoors  and 
the  sight  of  the  table  and  food  before  him 
brought  conviction  that  he  was  in  full  posses- 
sion of  his  senses.  Now  his  visitor  spoke, 
and  spoke  only  four  words,  which  astonished 
no  less  than  alarmed  him.  "Eat  not  so 
much."  Only  this  —  then  utter  silence. 
Again  the  enveloping  darkness  —  frogs, 
toads,  snakes,  faded  in  its  depths  —  and  with 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       63 

returning  light  Swedenborg  was  once  more 
alone  in  the  room. 

Small  wonder  that  the  remaining  hours  of 
the  day  were  spent  in  fruitless  cogitation  of 
this  weird  and  disagreeable  experience  which 
far  transcended  metaphysician's  normal  ken. 
Nor  is  it  surprising  to  find  him  naively  ad- 
mitting that  "this  unexpected  event  hastened 
my  return  home."  Imagination  can  easily 
round  out  the  picture,  —  the  rising  in  terror, 
the  overturning  of  the  chair,  the  seizing  of 
cocked  hat  and  gold-headed  cane,  the  few 
explanatory  words  to  the  astonished  inn- 
keeper, the  hurried  departure,  and  the  pro- 
gress, perchance  at  a  more  rapid  gait  than 
usual,  to  the  sleeping  quarters  in  another 
section  of  the  town.  Arrived  there,  safe  in 
the  refuge  of  his  commodious  bed -room,  sage 
argument  would  follow  in  the  effort  to  attain 
persuasion  that  the  terrifying  vision  had  been 
but  "the  effect  of  accidental  causes."  Be 
sure,  though,  that  our  philosopher,  dreading 
a  return  of  the  specter  if  he  permitted  food 
to  pass  his  lips,  would  go  hungry  to  bed  that 
night. 

That  night  —  more  visions.  To  the  wake- 
ful, restless,  perturbed  Swedenborg  the  same 


64      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

figure  appeared,  this  time  without  snakes  or 
frogs  or  toads,  and  not  in  darkness,  but  in  the 
midst  of  a  great  white  light  that  filled  the  bed 
chamber  with  a  wonderful  radiance.  Then 
a  voice  spoke: 

"I  am  God  the  Lord,  the  Creator  and 
Redeemer  of  the  world.  I  have  chosen  thee 
to  lay  before  men  the  spiritual  sense  of  the 
Holy  Word.  I  will  teach  thee  what  thou  art 
to  write." 

Slowly  the  light  faded,  the  figure  dis- 
appeared. And  now  the  astounded  philoso- 
pher, his  amazement  growing  with  each 
passing  moment,  found  himself  transported  as 
it  seemed  to  another  world,  —  the  world  of  the 
dead.  Men  and  women  of  his  acquaintance 
greeted  him  as  they  had  been  wont  to  do  when 
on  earth,  pressed  about  him,  eagerly  ques- 
tioned him.  Their  faces  still  wore  the  familiar 
expressions  of  kindliness,  anxiety,  sincerity, 
ill  will,  as  the  case  might  be.  In  every  way 
they  appeared  to  be  still  numbered  among  the 
living.  They  were  clad  in  the  clothes  they 
had  been  accustomed  to  wear,  they  ate  and 
drank,  they  lived  in  houses  and  towns.  The 
philosophers  among  them  continued  to  dispute, 
the  clergy  to  admonish,  the  authors  to  write. 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       65 

But,  his  perception  enlarging,  Swedenborg 
presently  discovered  that  this  was  in  reality 
only  an  intermediate  state  of  existence;  that 
beyond  it  at  the  one  end  was  heaven  and  at 
the  other  hell,  to  one  or  the  other  of  which 
the  dead  ultimately  gravitated  according  to 
their  desires  and  conduct.  For,  as  he  was  to 
learn  later,  the  spiritual  world  was  a  world 
of  law  and  order  fully  as  much  as  was  the 
natural  world.  Men  were  free  to  do  as  they 
chose;  but  they  must  bear  the  consequences. 
If  they  were  evil-minded,  it  would  be  their 
wish  to  consort  with  those  of  like  mind,  and 
in  time  they  must  pass  to  the  abode  of  the 
wicked;  if  pure-minded,  they  would  seek  out 
kindred  spirits,  and,  when  finally  purged  of 
the  dross  of  earth,  be  translated  to  the  realm 
of  bliss.  To  heaven,  then,  voyaged  Sweden- 
borg, on  a  journey  of  discovery;  and  to  hell 
likewise.  What  he  saw  he  has  set  down  in 
many  bulky  volumes,  than  which  philosopher 
has  written  none  more  strange.* 

*  The  most  complete  enumeration  of  the  writings  of  Swedenborg 
will  be  found  in  the  Rev.  James  Hyde's  "A  Bibliography  of  the 
Works  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg,"  published  in  1906  by  the  Sweden- 
borg Society  of  London.  Including  books  on  Swedenborg,  this  bibli- 
ography contains  no  fewer  than  thirty-five  hundred  items.  For  a 
detailed  account  of  Swedenborg's  life  the  reader  may  consult  Dr. 


66       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

With  the  return  of  daylight  it  might  seem 
that  he  would  be  prompt  to  dismiss  all  memory 
of  these  peculiar  experiences  as  fantasies  of 
sleep.  But  he  was  satisfied  that  he  had  not 
slept;  that  on  the  contrary  he  had  been  pre- 
ternaturally  conscious  throughout  the  long, 
eventful  night.  In  solemn  retrospect  he  re- 
traced his  past  career.  He  remembered  that 
for  some  years  he  had  had  symbolic  dreams 
and  symbolic  hallucinations  —  as  of  a  golden 
key,  a  tongue  of  flame,  and  voices  —  which 
had  at  the  time  baffled  his  understanding,  but 
which  he  now  interpreted  as  premonitory 
warnings  that  God  had  set  him  apart  for  a 
great  mission.  He  remembered  too  that  when 
still  a  child  his  mind  had  been  engrossed  by 
thoughts  of  God,  and  that  in  talking  with  his 
parents  he  had  uttered  words  which  caused 
them  to  declare  that  the  angels  spoke  through 
his  mouth.  Remembering  all  these  things, 
he  could  no  longer  doubt  that  Divinity  had 
actually  visited  him  in  his  humble  London 
boarding  house,  and  he  made  up  his  mind 
that  he  must  bestir  himself  to  carry  out  the 

R.  L.  Tafel's  "Documents  concerning  the  Life  and  Character 
of  Swedenborg,"  or  the  biographies  by  William  White,  Benjamin 
Worcester,  James  J.  G.  Wilkinson,  and  Nathaniel  Hobart.  Of 
these,  the  White  biography  is  the  most  critical. 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       67 

divine  command  of  expounding  to  his  fellow 
men  the  hidden  meaning  of  Holy  Writ. 

Forthwith,  being  still  fired  with  the  true 
scientist's  passion  for  original  research,  he 
set  himself  to  the  task  of  learning  Hebrew. 
He  was,  it  will  be  remembered,  approaching 
sixty,  an  age  when  the  acquisition  of  a  new 
language  is  exceedingly  difficult  and  rare. 
Yet  such  progress  did  he  make  that  within  a 
very  few  months  he  was  writing  notes  in  ex- 
planation of  the  book  of  Genesis.  And  thus 
he  continued  not  for  months  but  years, 
patiently  traversing  the  entire  Bible,  and  at 
the  same  time  carefully  committing  to  paper 
everything  "seen  and  heard"  in  the  spiritual 
world;  for  his  London  excursion  beyond  the 
borderland  which  separates  the  here  from  the 
hereafter  had  been  only  the  first  of  similar 
journeys  taken  not  merely  by  night  but  in 
broad  daylight.  To  use  his  own  phraseology: 
"The  Lord  opened  daily,  very  often,  my 
bodily  eyes;  so  that  in  the  middle  of  the  day 
I  could  see  into  the  other  world,  and  in  a  state 
of  perfect  wakefulness  converse  with  angels 
and  spirits." 

His  increasing  absorption  —  absent- 
mindedness,  his  friends  would  call  it  —  his 


68       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

habit  of  falling  into  trances,  and  his  claim  to 
interworld  communication,  could  not  fail  to 
excite  the  surprise  of  all  who  had  known 
him  as  scientist  and  philosopher.  But  these 
vagaries,  as  people  deemed  them,  met  the 
greater  toleration  because  of  the  evident  fact 
that  they  did  not  dim  his  intellectual  powers 
and  did  not  interfere  with  his  activities  in 
behalf  of  the  public  good.  True,  in  1747  he 
resigned  his  office  of  assessor  of  mines  in 
order  to  have  more  leisure  to  prosecute  his 
adventures  into  the  unknown;  but  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Swedish  Diet  he  continued  to  play 
a  prominent  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  King- 
dom, giving  long  and  profound  study  to  the 
critical  problems  of  administration,  economics, 
and  finance  with  which  the  nation's  leaders 
were  confronted  during  the  third  quarter  of 
the  century.  So  that  —  bearing  in  mind  the 
further  fact  that  he  was  no  blatant  advocate 
of  his  opinions  —  it  seems  altogether  likely 
his  spiritistic  ideas  would  have  gained  no 
great  measure  of  attention,  had  it  not  been 
for  a  series  of  singular  occurrences  that  took 
place  between  1759  and  1762. 

Toward  the  end  of  July  in  the  first  of  these 
years,  Swedenborg  (whose  fondness  for  travel 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       69 

ceased  only  with  his  death)  arrived  in  Gotten- 
burg  homeward  bound  from  England,  and  on 
the  invitation  of  a  friend  decided  to  break  his 
journey  by  spending  a  few  days  in  that  city. 
Two  hours  after  his  arrival,  while  attending 
a  small  reception  given  in  his  honor,  he  elec- 
trified the  company  by  abruptly  declaring 
that  at  that  moment  a  dangerous  fire  had 
broken  out  at  Stockholm,  three  hundred  miles 
away,  and  was  spreading  rapidly.  Becoming 
excited,  he  rushed  from  the  room,  to  reenter 
with  the  news  that  the  house  of  one  of  his 
friends  was  in  ashes,  and  that  his  own  house 
was  threatened.  Anxious  moments  passed, 
while  he  restlessly  paced  up  and  down,  in 
and  out.  Then,  with  a  cry  of  joy,  he  ex- 
claimed, "Thank  God  the  fire  is  out,  the  third 
door  from  my  house!" 

Like  wild  the  tidings  spread  through 
Gottenburg,  and  the  greatest  commotion  pre- 
vailed. Some  were  inclined  to  give  credence 
to  Swedenborg's  statements;  more,  who  did 
not  know  the  man,  derided  him  as  a  sensation 
monger.  But  all  had  to  wait  with  what 
patience  they  could,  for  those  were  the  days 
before  steam  engine  and  telegraph.  Forty- 
eight  anxious  hours  passed.  Then  letters 


70      Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

were  received  confirming  the  philosopher's 
announcement,  and,  we  are  assured,  showing 
that  the  fire  had  taken  precisely  the  path 
described  by  him,  and  had  stopped  where  he 
had  indicated. 

No  peace  now  for  Swedenborg.  His  home 
at  Stockholm,  with  its  quaint  gambrel  roof, 
its  summer  houses,  its  neat  flower  beds,  its 
curious  box  trees,  instantly  became  a  Mecca 
for  the  inquisitive,  burning  to  see  the  man 
who  held  converse  with  the  dead  and  was 
instructed  by  the  latter  in  many  portentous 
secrets.  Most  of  those  who  gained  admission, 
and  through  him  sought  to  be  put  into  touch 
with  departed  friends,  received  a  courteous 
but  firm  refusal,  accompanied  by  the  explana- 
tion: "God  having  for  wise  and  good  purposes 
separated  the  world  of  spirits  from  ours,  a 
communication  is  never  granted  without 
cogent  reasons."  When,  however,  his  visitors 
satisfied  him  that  they  were  imbued  with 
something  more  than  curiosity,  he  made  an 
effort  to  meet  their  wishes,  and  occasionally 
with  astonishing  results. 

It  was  thus  in  the  case  of  Madam  Marte- 
ville,  widow  of  the  Dutch  Ambassador  to 
Sweden.  In  1761,  some  months  after  her 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       71 

husband's  death,  a  goldsmith  demanded  from 
her  payment  for  a  silver  service  the  Ambassa- 
dor had  bought  from  him.  Feeling  sure  that 
the  bill  had  already  been  paid,  she  made 
search  for  the  receipt,  but  could  find  none. 
The  sum  involved  was  large,  and  she  sought 
Swedenborg  and  asked  him  to  seek  her  hus- 
band in  the  world  of  spirits  and  ascertain 
whether  the  debt  had  been  settled.  Three 
days  later,  when  she  was  entertaining  some 
friends,  Swedenborg  called,  and  in  the  most 
matter  of  fact  way  stated  that  he  had  had  a 
conversation  with  Marteville,  and  had  learned 
from  him  that  the  debt  had  been  canceled 
seven  months  before  his  death,  and  that  the 
receipt  would  be  found  in  a  certain  bureau. 

"But  I  have  searched  all  through  it,"  pro- 
tested Madam  Marteville. 

"Ah,"  was  Swedenborg's  rejoinder;  "but 
it  has  a  secret  drawer  of  which  you  know 
nothing." 

At  once  all  present  hurried  to  the  bureau, 
and  there,  in  the  private  compartment  which 
he  quickly  located,  lay  the  missing  receipt. 

In  similar  fashion  did  Swedenborg  relate 
to  the  Queen  of  Sweden,  Louisa  Ulrica,  the 
substance  of  the  last  interview  between  her 


72       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

and  her  dead  brother,  the  Crown  Prince  of 
Prussia,  an  interview  which  had  been  strictly 
private,  and  the  subject  of  which,  she  affirmed, 
was  such  that  no  third  person  could  possibly 
have  known  what  passed  between  them. 

More  startling  still  was  his  declaration  to  a 
merry  company  at  Amsterdam  that  at  that 
same  hour,  in  far  away  Russia,  the  Emperor 
Peter  III.  was  being  foully  done  to  death  in 
prison.  Once  more  time  proved  that  the 
spirit  seer,  as  Swedenborg  was  now  popularly 
known,  had  told  the  truth. 

A  decade  more,  and  again  we  meet  him  in 
London,  his  whole  being,  at  eighty-four, 
animated  with  the  same  energy  and  enthu- 
siasm that  had  led  him  to  seek  and  attain  in 
his  earlier  manhood  such  a  vast  store  of 
knowledge.  And  here,  as  Christmas  drew 
near,  he  found  lodging  with  two  old  friends, 
a  wig  maker  and  his  wife.  But  ere  Christmas 
dawned  he  lay  a  helpless  victim  of  that  dread 
disease  paralysis.  Not  a  word,  not  a  move- 
ment, for  full  three  weeks. 

Then,  with  returning  consciousness,  a  call 
for  pen  and  paper.  He  would,  he  muttered 
with  thickened  speech,  send  a  note  to  inform 
a  certain  John  Wesley  that  the  spirits  had 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       73 

made  known  to  him  Wesley's  desire  to  meet 
him,  and  that  he  would  be  glad  to  receive  a 
visit  at  any  time.  In  reply  came  word  that 
the  great  evangelist  had  indeed  wished  to 
make  the  great  mystic's  acquaintance,  and 
that  after  returning  from  a  six  months'  circuit 
he  would  give  himself  the  pleasure  of  waiting 
upon  Swedenborg.  "Too  late,"  was  the  aged 
philosopher's  comment  as  the  story  goes, 
"too  late;  for  on  the  29th  of  March  I  shall 
be  in  the  world  of  spirits  never  more  to 
return." 

March  came  and  wentf  and  with  it  went 
his  soul  on  the  day  predicted,  if  prediction 
there  were.  They  buried  him  in  London,  and 
there  in  early  season,  out  of  his  grave  blos- 
somed the  religion  that  has  preserved  his 
name,  his  fame,  his  doctrines.  To  the  dead 
Swedenborg  succeeded  the  living  Sweden- 
borgianism. 

But  what  shall  those  of  us  who  are  not 
Swedenborgians  think  of  the  master?  Shall 
we  accept  at  face  value  the  story  of  his  life  as 
gathered  from  the  documents  left  behind  him 
and  as  set  forth  here;  and,  accepting  it,  believe 
that  he  was  in  reality  a  man  set  apart  by  God 


74       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

and  granted  the  rare  favor  of  insight  into  that 
unknown  world  to  which  all  of  us  must  some 
day  go  ? 

The  true  explanation,  it  seems  to  me,  can 
be  had  only  when  we  view  Swedenborg  in  the 
light  of  the  marvelous  discoveries  made  dur- 
ing the  last  few  years  in  the  field  of  abnormal 
psychology.  Beginning  in  France,  and  con- 
tinuing more  recently  in  the  United  States 
and  other  countries,  investigations  have  been 
set  on  foot  resulting  in  the  solution  of  many 
human  problems  not  unlike  the  riddle  of 
Swedenborg,  and  occasionally  far  more  com- 
plicated than  that  presented  in  his  case.  All 
these  solutions,  in  the  last  analysis,  rest  on 
the  basic  discovery  that  human  personality 
is  by  no  means  the  single  indivisible  entity 
it  is  commonly  supposed  to  be,  but  is  instead 
singularly  unstable  and  singularly  complex. 
It  has  been  found  that  under  some  unusual 
stimulus  —  such  as  an  injury,  an  illness,  or 
the  strain  of  an  intense  emotion  —  there  may 
result  a  disintegration,  or,  as  it  is  technically 
termed,  a  dissociation,  of  personality,  giving 
rise  it  may  be  to  hysteria,  it  may  be  to  hallu- 
cinations, it  may  even  be  to  a  complete  dis- 
appearance of  the  original  personality  and  its 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       75 

replacement  by  a  new  personality,  sometimes 
of  radically  different  characteristics.* 

It  has  also  been  found,  by  another  group 
of  investigators  working  principally  in  Eng- 
land, that  side  by  side  with  the  original,  the 
waking,  personality  of  every-day  life,  there 
coexists  a  hidden  personality  possessing  facul- 
ties far  transcending  those  enjoyed  by  the 
waking  personality,  but  as  a  rule  coming  into 
play  only  at  moments  of  crisis,  though  by 
some  favored  mortals  invocable  more  fre- 
quently. To  this  hidden  personality,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  secondary  personality  of 
dissociation,  has  been  given  the  name  of  the 
subliminal  self,  and  to  its  operation  some 
attribute  alike  the  productions  of  men  of 
genius  and  the  phenomena  of  clairvoyance 
and  thought  transference  that  have  puzzled 
mankind  from  time  immemorial. 

Now,  arguing  by  analogy  from  the  cases 
scattered  through  the  writings  of  Janet,  Sidis, 
Prince,  Myers,  Gurney,  and  many  others 
whose  works  the  reader  may  consult  for 
himself  in  any  good  public  library,  it  is 

*  Illustrative  cases  will  be  cited  in  the  discussion  of  "The  Watseka 
Wonder"  on  a  later  page.  For  a  detailed  explanation  of  "dissocia- 
tion" the  reader  is  referred  to  Dr.  Morton  Prince's  "The  Dissocia- 
tion of  a  Personality,"  or  Dr.  Boris  Sidis's  "Multiple  Personality." 


76       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

my  belief  that  in  Swedenborg  we  have  a 
preeminent  illustration  both  of  dissociation 
and  of  subliminal  action,  and  that  it  is 
therefore  equally  unnecessary  to  stigmatize 
him  as  insane  or  to  adopt  the  spiritistic  hy- 
pothesis in  explanation  of  his  utterances. 
The  records  show  that  from  his  father  he  in- 
herited a  tendency  to  hallucinations,  checked 
for  a  time  by  the  nature  of  his  studies,  but 
fostered  as  these  expanded  into  pursuit  of 
the  absolute  and  the  infinite.  They  further 
show  that  for  a  long  time  before  the  London 
visions  he  was  in  a  disturbed  state  of  health, 
his  nervous  system  unstrung,  his  whole  being 
so  unhinged  that  at  times  he  suffered  from 
attacks  of  what  was  probably  hystero-epi- 
lepsy. 

It  seems  altogether  likely,  then,  that  in  Lon- 
don the  process  of  dissociation,  after  this 
period  of  gradual  growth,  suddenly  leaped 
into  activity.  Thereafter  his  hallucinations, 
from  being  sporadic  and  vague,  became 
habitual  and  definite,  his  hystero-epileptic 
attacks  more  frequent.  But,  happily  for  him, 
the  dissociation  never  became  complete.  He 
was  left  in  command  of  his  original  personality, 
his  mental  powers  continued  unabated;  and 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       77 

he  was  still  able  to  adjust  himself  to  the  en- 
vironment of  the  world  about  him. 

But,  it  may  be  objected,  how  explain  his 
revelations  in  the  matter  of  the  fire  at  Stock- 
holm, the  missing  receipt,  the  message  to 
Queen  Ulrica,  and  the  death  of  Peter  III.  ? 
This  brings  us  to  the  question  of  subliminal 
action.  Swedenborg  himself,  far  in  advance 
of  his  generation  in  this  as  in  much  else,  ap- 
pears to  have  realized  that  there  was  no  need 
of  invoking  spirits  to  account  for  such  transac- 
tions. "I  need  not  mention,"  he  once  wrote, 
"the  manifest  sympathies  acknowledged  to 
exist  in  this  lower  world,  and  which  are  too 
many  to  be  recounted;  so  great  being  the 
sympathy  and  magnetism  of  man  that  com- 
munication often  takes  place  between  those 
who  are  miles  apart." 

Here,  in  language  that  admits  of  no  mis- 
interpretation, we  see  stated  the  doctrine  of 
telepathy,  which  is  only  now  beginning  to  find 
acceptance  among  scientific  men,  but  which, 
as  I  view  it,  has  been  amply  demonstrated  by 
the  experiments  of  recent  years  and  by  the 
thousands  of  cases  of  spontaneous  occur- 
rence recorded  in  such  publications  as  the 
"Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 


78       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

Research."  And  if  these  experiments  and 
spontaneous  instances  prove  anything,  they 
prove  that  telepathy  is  distinctively  a  faculty 
of  the  subliminal  self;  and  that  a  greater  or 
less  degree  of  dissociation  is  essential,  not  to 
the  receipt,  but  to  the  objective  realization, 
of  telepathic  messages.  Thus,  the  entranced 
"medium"  of  modern  days  extracts  from  the 
depths  of  his  sitter's  subconsciousness  facts 
which  the  sitter  has  consciously  forgotten, 
facts  even  of  which  he  may  never  have  been 
consciously  aware,  but  which  have  been 
transmitted  telepathically  to  his  subliminal 
self  by  the  subliminal  self  of  some  third 
person.* 

So  with   Swedenborg.     Admitting  the  au- 
thenticity of   the    afore-mentioned  anecdotes 

—  none   of  which,  it  is  as  well  to  point  out, 
reaches  us  supported  by  first-hand  evidence 

—  it  is  quite  unnecessary  to  appeal  to  spirits 
as  his  purveyors  of  knowledge.     In  every  in- 
stance telepathy  —  or  clairvoyance,  which  is 
after  all  explicable  itself  only  by  telepathy  — 
will  suffice.     In  the  Marteville  affair,  for  ex- 
ample, it  is  not  unreasonable  to  assume  that 

*  This  point  is  more  fully  discussed  in  my  earlier  book,  "The  Riddle 
of  Personality." 


The  Visions  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg       79 

before  his  death  the  Ambassador  telepathically 
told  his  devoted  wife  of  the  existence  of  the 
secret  drawer  and  its  contents ;  if,  indeed,  she 
had  not  known  and  forgotten.  It  would  then 
be  an  exceedingly  simple  matter  for  the  dis- 
sociated Swedenborg  to  acquire  the  desired 
information  from  the  wife's  subconsciousness. 
Nor  does  this  reflect  on  his  honesty.  Doubt- 
less he  believed,  as  he  represented,  that  he 
had  actually  had  a  conversation  with  the  dead 
Marteville,  and  had  learned  from  him  the 
whereabouts  of  the  missing  receipt.  In  the 
form  his  dissociation  took  he  could  no  more 
escape  such  a  hallucination  than  can  the 
twentieth-century  medium  avoid  the  belief 
that  he  is  a  veritable  intermediary  between  the 
visible  and  the  invisible  world. 

Not  that  I  would  put  Swedenborg  on  a  par 
with  the  ordinary  medium.  He  was  un- 
questionably a  man  of  gigantic  intellect,  and 
he  was  unquestionably  inspired,  if  by  inspira- 
tion be  understood  the  gift  of  combining  sub- 
liminal with  supraliminal  powers  to  a  degree 
granted  to  few  of  those  whom  the  world  counts 
truly  great.  If  his  fanciful  and  fantastic 
pictures  of  life  in  heaven  and  hell  and  in  our 
neighboring  planets  welled  up  from  the  depths 


80       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

of  his  inmost  mind,  far  more  did  the  noble 
truths  to  which  he  gave  expression.  It  is  by 
these  he  should  be  judged;  it  is  in  these,  not 
in  his  hallucinations  nor  in  his  telepathic  ex- 
hibitions, that  lies  the  secret  of  the  command- 
ing, if  not  always  recognized,  influence  he 
has  exercised  on  the  thought  of  posterity.  A 
solitary  figure?  True:  but  a  grand  figure, 
even  in  his  saddest  moment  of  delusion. 


V 

THE  COCK  LANE  GHOST 

THE  quaint  old  London  church  of  St. 
Sepulchre's  could  not  by  any  stretch 
of  the  imagination  be  called  a  fashionable 
place  of  worship.  It  stood  in  a  crowded  quar- 
ter of  the  city,  and  the  gentry  were  content  to 
leave  it  to  the  small  tradesfolk  and  humble 
working  people  who  made  up  its  parish.  Now 
and  again  a  stray  antiquarian  paid  it  a  fleeting 
visit;  but,  speaking  generally,  the  coming  of  a 
stranger  was  so  rare  as  to  be  accounted  an 
event. 

It  is  easy,  then,  to  understand  the  sensation 
occasioned  by  the  appearance  at  prayers  one 
morning,  in  the  year  of  grace,  1759,  of  a  young 
and  well  dressed  couple  whose  natural  habitat 
was  obviously  in  quite  other  surroundings. 
As  they  waited  in  the  aisle  —  the  man  tall, 
erect,  and  easy  of  bearing,  the  woman  fair 
and  graceful  —  there  was  an  instant  craning 
of  necks  and  vast  nudging  of  one's  neighbor; 
and  long  after  they  had  seated  themselves  a 

81 


82       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

subdued  whispering  bore  further,  if  unneces- 
sary, testimony  to  the  curiosity  they  had 
aroused. 

Probably  no  one  felt  a  more  lively  interest 
than  did  the  parish  clerk,  who,  in  showing 
them  to  a  pew,  had  noted  the  tenderness  with 
which  they  regarded  each  other.  It  needed 
nothing  more  to  persuade  him  that  they  were 
eloping  lovers,  and  that  a  snug  gratuity  was 
as  good  as  in  his  pocket.  All  through  the 
service  he  fidgeted  impatiently  in  the  shadows 
near  the  door,  and  as  soon  as  the  congrega- 
tion was  dismissed  and  he  perceived  that  the 
visitors  were  lingering  in  their  places,  he 
hurried  forward  and  accosted  them.  His 
name,  he  volubly  explained,  was  Parsons;  he 
was  officiating  clerk  of  the  parish;  likewise 
master  in  the  charity  school  nearby.  No 
doubt  they  would  like  to  inspect  the  church, 
perhaps  to  visit  the  school;  it  might  even  be 
they  were  desirous  of  meeting  the  pastor  ?  He 
would  be  delighted  if  he  could  serve  them  in 
any  way. 

"Possibly  you  can,"  said  the  man,  "for  you 
doubtless  know  the  neighborhood  like  a  book. 
My  name  is  Knight,  and  this  lady  is  my  wife. 
We  —  He  stopped  short  at  sight  of  the 


The  Cock  Lane  Ghost  83 

changed  expression  on  the  other's  face,  and 
breesquely  demanded,  "How  now,  man? 
What  are  you  gaping  at?" 

"No  offense,  sir,  no  offense,"  stammered 
the  disappointed  and  embarrassed  clerk.  "I 
beg  your  pardon,  sir  and  madam." 

There  was  an  awkward  pause  before  the 
man  began  again.  "As  I  was  saying,  my 
name  is  Knight  and  this  lady  is  my  wife. 
We  have  only  recently  come  to  London  and 
are  in  search  of  lodgings.  If  you  know 
of  any  good  place  to  which  you  can  recom- 
mend us,  we  shall  be  heartily  obliged  to 
you." 

Whatever  he  was,  Clerk  Parsons  was  not  a 
fool,  and  these  few  words  showed  him  plainly 
that  he  was  face  to  face  with  a  mystery. 
Elopers  or  no,  such  a  well  born  couple  would 
not  from  choice  bury  themselves  in  this  for- 
bidding section  of  London.  With  a  cunning 
fostered  by  long  years  of  precarious  livelihood, 
he  at  once  resolved  to  profit  if  he  could  from 
their  need. 

"I  fear,  sir,"  said  he,  "that  I  know  of  no 
lodgings  that  would  be  at  all  suitable  for  you. 
We  are  poor  folk,  all  of  us,  and  — " 

"If  you  are  honest  folk,"  interrupted  the 


84       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

lady,  with  an  enchanting  smile,  "we  ask  no 
more." 

Her  husband  checked  her  with  a  gesture 
and  a  look  that  was  not  lost  on  the  now  all- 
observing  clerk,  though  it  was  long  before  he 
understood  its  significance. 

"We  are  willing  to  pay  a  reasonable  charge, 
and  shall  require  only  a  bed-room  and  a  sitting- 
room.  If  possible,  we  should  prefer  to  be 
where  there  are  no  other  lodgers." 

"In  that  case,"  responded  the  clerk,  with 
an  eagerness  he  could  scarcely  veil,  "I  can 
accommodate  you  in  my  own  house.  It  is 
simple  but  commodious,  and  I  can  answer 
that  my  wife  will  deal  fairly  by  you." 

"What  think  you,  Fanny?"  asked  the  man, 
turning  to  his  wife. 

"We  can  at  least  go  and  see." 

This  they  immediately  did,  and  to  Clerk 
Parsons's  joy  decided  to  make  their  home  with 
him.  Nor  did  their  coming  gladden  the  clerk 
alone.  His  wife  and  children,  two  little  girls 
of  nine  and  ten,  from  the  moment  they  saw 
the  "beautiful  lady"  conceived  a  warm  attach- 
ment for  her.  Her  geniality,  her  kindliness, 
her  manifest  love  for  her  husband,  appealed 
to  their  sympathies,  as  did  the  sadness  which 


The  Cock  Lane  Ghost  85 

from  time  to  time  clouded  her  face.  If,  like 
Parsons  himself,  they  soon  became  convinced 
that  she  and  her  husband  shared  some  mo- 
mentous secret,  they  could  not  bring  them- 
selves to  believe  that  it  involved  her  in  wrong- 
doing. For  the  husband  too  they  entertained 
the  friendliest  feelings.  He  was  of  a  blunt, 
outspoken  disposition  and  perhaps  a  trifle 
quick  tempered,  but  he  was  frank  and  liberal 
and  sincerely  devoted  to  his  wife.  For  all  in 
the  household,  therefore,  the  days  passed 
pleasantly;  and  when  Mrs.  Parsons  one  fine 
spring  morning  discovered  her  fair  guest  in 
tears  she  felt  that  time  had  established  be- 
tween them  relations  sufficiently  confidential 
to  warrant  her  motherly  intervention. 

"Come,  my  dear,"  said  she,  "I  have  long 
seen  that  something  is  troubling  you.  Tell  me 
what  it  is,  that  I  may  be  able  to  comfort,  per- 
haps aid  you." 

"It  is  nothing,  good  Mrs.  Parsons,  nothing. 
I  am  very  foolish.  I  was  thinking  of  what 
would  become  of  me  if  anything  should  happen 
to  my  husband." 

"Dear,  dear!  and  nothing  will.  But  you 
could  then  turn  to  your  relatives." 

"I  have  no  relatives." 


86       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

"What,  my  dear,  are  they  all  dead?" 
"No,"  in  a  solemn  tone,  "but  I  am  dead 
to  them." 

In  a  voice  shaken  by  sobs,  she  now  unfolded 
her  story,  and  pitiful  enough  it  was.  She  was, 
it  appeared,  the  sister  of  Knight's  first  wife,  who 
had  died  in  Norfolk  leaving  a  new  born  child 
that  survived  its  mother  only  a  few  hours.  At 
Knight's  request  she  then  went  to  keep  house 
for  him,  and  presently  they  found  themselves 
very  much  in  love  with  each  other.  But  in 
the  canon  law  they  discovered  an  insuperable 
obstacle  to  marriage.  Had  the  wife  died 
without  issue,  or  had  her  child  not  been  born 
alive,  the  law  would  have  permitted  her,  even 
though  a  "deceased  wife's  sister,"  to  wed  the 
man  of  her  choice.  As  things  stood,  a  legiti- 
mate union  was  out  of  the  question.  Learning 
this,  they  resolved  to  separate;  but  separation 
brought  only  increased  longing.  Thence  grew 
a  rapid  and  mutual  persuasion  that,  under  the 
circumstances,  it  would  be  no  sin  to  bid  defi- 
ance to  the  canon  law  and  live  together  as 
man  and  wife.  This  view  not  finding  favor 
with  their  relatives,  and  becoming  apprehen- 
sive of  arrest  and  imprisonment,  they  had  fled 
to  London  and  had  hidden  themselves  in  its 


The  Cock  Lane  Ghost  87 

depths.  Surely,  she  concluded,  with  a  des- 
perate intensity,  surely  fair-minded  people 
would  not  condemn  them ;  surely  all  who  knew 
what  true  love  was  would  feel  that  they  could 
not  have  acted  otherwise? 

This  confession,  though  it  did  not  in  the 
least  diminish  her  landlady's  regard  for  her, 
worked  indirectly  in  a  most  disastrous  way. 
Whether  driven  by  necessity,  or  emboldened 
by  the  belief  that  his  lodgers  were  at  his  mercy, 
the  clerk  soon  afterward  approached  Knight 
for  a  small  loan;  and,  obtaining  it,  repeated 
the  request  on  several  other  occasions,  until 
he  had  borrowed  in  all  about  twelve  pounds. 
Payment  he  postponed  on  one  pretext  and 
another,  until  the  lender  finally  lost  all  patience 
and  informed  him  roundly  that  he  must  settle 
or  stand  suit.  Then  followed  an  interchange 
of  words  that  in  an  instant  terminated  the 
pleasant  connection  of  the  preceding  months. 
Parsons  was  described  as  "an  impudent 
scoundrel  who  would  be  taught  what  honesty 
meant."  Parsons  described  himself  as  "know- 
ing what  honesty  meant  full  well,  and  needing 
no  lessons  from  a  fugitive  from  justice." 
White  with  rage,  Knight  bundled  his  belong- 
ings together,  called  a  hackney  coach,  and 


88       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

within  the  hour  had  shaken  the  dust  of  Cock 
Lane  from  his  feet,  finding  new  lodgings  in 
Clerkenwell  and  at  once  haling  his  whilom 
landlord  to  the  debtors'  court. 

A  little  time,  and  all  else  was  forgotten  in 
the  serious  illness  of  his  beloved  Fanny.  At 
first  the  physician  declared  that  the  malady 
would  prove  slight;  but  she  herself  seemed  to 
feel  that  she  was  doomed.  "Send  for  a 
lawyer,"  she  urged;  "I  wrant  to  make  my  will. 
It  is  little  enough  I  have,  God  knows;  but  I 
wish  to  be  sure  you  will  get  it  all,  dear  hus- 
band." 

To  humor  her,  the  will  was  drawn,  and  now 
it  developed  that  the  disease  which  had  at- 
tacked her  was  smallpox  in  its  worst  form. 
No  need  to  dwell  on  the  fearful  hours  that  fol- 
lowed, the  fond  farewells,  the  lapsing  into  a 
merciful  unconsciousness,  the  death.  They 
buried  her  in  the  vaults  of  St.  John's  Clerken- 
well, and  from  her  tomb  her  husband  came 
forth  to  give  battle  to  the  relatives  who,  shun- 
ning her  while  alive,  did  not  disdain  to  seek 
possession  of  the  small  legacy  she  had  left 
him.  In  this  they  failed,  but  scarcely  had 
the  smoke  of  the  legal  canonading  cleared 
away,  before  he  was  called  upon  to  meet  a 


The  Cock  Lane  Ghost  89 

new  issue  so  unexpected  and  so  mysterious 
that  history  affords  no  stranger  sequel  to  tale 
of  love. 

The  first  intimation  of  its  coming  and  of  its 
nature  was  revealed  to  him,  as  to  the  public 
generally,  by  a  brief  paragraph  printed  in  a 
mid  January,  1762,  issue  of  The  London 
Ledger: 

"For  some  time  past  a  great  knocking  hav- 
ing been  heard  in  the  night,  at  the  officiat- 
ing parish  clerk's  of  St.  Sepulchre's,  in  Cock 
Lane  near  Smithfield,  to  the  great  terror  of 
the  family,  and  all  means  used  to  discover  the 
meaning  of  it,  four  gentlemen  sat  up  there 
last  Friday  night,  among  whom  was  a  clergy- 
man standing  withinside  the  door,  who  asked 
various  questions.  On  his  asking  whether 
any  one  had  been  murdered,  no  answer  was 
made;  but  on  his  asking  whether  any  one  had 
been  poisoned,  it  knocked  one  and  thirty 
times.  The  report  current  in  the  neighbor- 
hood is  that  a  woman  was  some  time  ago 
poisoned,  and  buried  at  St.  John's  Clerken- 
well,  by  her  brother-in-law." 

Instantly  the  city  was  agog,  and  for  the 
next  fortnight  The  Ledger,  The  Chronicle,  and 
other  newspapers  gave  much  of  their  space  to 


90       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

details  of  the  pretended  revelations,  though 
they  were  careful  to  refer  to  names  by  blanks 
or  initials  only.*  These  accounts  informed 
their  readers  that  the  knocking  had  first  been 
heard  in  the  life  time  of  the  deceased  when, 
during  the  absence  of  her  supposed  husband, 
she  had  shared  her  bed  with  Clerk  Parsons's 
oldest  daughter;  that  she  had  then  pronounced 
it  an  omen  of  her  early  death;  that  it  did  not 
occur  again  until  after  she  had  died;  that,  if 
the  soi-disant  spirit  could  be  believed,  the 
earlier  knocking  had  been  due  to  the  agency 
of  her  dead  sister;  and  that,  in  her  own  turn, 
she  had  come  back  to  bring  to  justice  the 
villain  who  had  murdered  her  for  the  little  she 
possessed.  In  commenting  on  this  amazing 
story,  the  papers  were  prompt  to  point  out 
that  the  knocking  was  heard  only  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  afore-mentioned  daughter,  now  a 
girl  of  twelve;  and  while  one  or  two,  like  The 

*  It  is  proper  to  observe  that  the  name  Knight  given  to  the  leading 
actor  in  this  singular  drama  rests  on  inference  merely.  Doubtless 
from  a  fear  of  libel  suits,  the  contemporary  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines speak  of  him  only  as  Mr. ,  or  Mr.  K ,  there  being,  so 

far  as  the  present  writer  has  been  able  to  discover,  only  one  pub- 
lication (The  Gentleman's  Magazine)  so  bold  as  to  refer  to 
him  as  Mr.  K — t.  Nowhere  is  his  identity  made  clear.  Judging 
from  the  prominence  of  those  who  rushed  to  his  defense,  he  would 
seem  to  have  been  a  person  of  considerable  importance. 


The  Cock  Lane  Ghost  91 

Ledger,  inclined  to  credence,  the  majority  fol- 
lowed The  Chronicle  in  denouncing  the  affair 
as  an  "imposture." 

The  outraged  husband,  as  may  be  imagined, 
lost  not  a  moment  in  demanding  admission 
to  the  seances  which  were  proceeding  merrily 
under  the  direction  of  a  servant  in  the  Par- 
sons family  and  a  clergyman  of  the  neighbor- 
hood. He  found  that  the  method  practised 
was  to  put  the  girl  to  bed,  wait  until  the  knock- 
ing should  begin,  and  then  question  the  alleged 
spirit;  when  answers  were  received  according 
to  a  code  of  one  knock  for  an  affirmative  and 
two  knocks  for  a  negative.  It  was  in  his 
presence,  then,  though  not  at  a  single  sitting, 
that  the  following  dialogue  was  in  this  way 
carried  on: 

"Are  you  Miss  Fanny ?"  — "Yes." 
"Did  you  die  naturally ?"  —"No." 
"Did  you  die  by  poison?"  —  "Yes." 
"  Do  you  know  what  kind  of  poison  it  was  ?  " 
—  "Yes." 

"Was  it  arsenic?"  — "Yes." 
"Was  it  given  to  you  by  any  person  other 
than  Mr.  Knight?" —  "No." 

"Do  you  wish  that  he  be  hanged?"  — 
"Yes." 


92       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

"Was  it  given  to  you  in  gruel?"  —  "No." 

"In  beer?"   -"Yes." 

Here  a  spectator  interrupted  with  the  re- 
mark that  the  deceased  was  never  known  to 
drink  beer,  but  had  been  fond  of  purl,  and  the 
question  was  hastily  put : 

"Was  it  not  in  purl?"   -  "Yes." 

"How  long  did  you  live  after  taking  it  ?" — 
Three  knocks,  held  to  mean  three  hours. 

"Did  Carrots"  (her  maid)  "know  of  your 
being  poisoned ?"  —  "Yes." 

"Did  you  tell  her?"  — "Yes." 

"How  long  was  it  after  you  took  it  before 
you  told  her  ?"  One  knock,  for  one  hour. 

Here  was  something  tangible,  and  Knight 
went  to  work  with  a  will  to  refute  the  terrible 
charge  brought  by  the  invisible  accuser.  As 
reported  in  The  Daily  Gazetteer,  which  had 
promised  that  "the  reader  may  expect  to  be 
enlightened  from  time  to  time  to  the  utmost 
of  our  power  in  this  intricate  and  dark  affair," 
the  maid  Carrots  was  found,  and  from  her  was 
procured  a  sworn  statement  that  Mrs.  Knight 
had  said  not  a  word  to  her  about  being  poi- 
soned; that,  indeed,  she  had  become  uncon- 
scious twelve  hours  before  her  death  and 
remained  unconscious  to  the  end.  The 


The  Cock  Lane  Ghost  93 

physician  and  apothecary  who  had  attended  her 
made  affidavit  to  the  same  effect,  and  de- 
scribed the  fatal  nature  of  her  illness.  It  was 
further  shown  that  her  death  at  most  bene- 
fited Knight  by  not  more  than  a  hundred 
pounds,  of  which  he  had  no  need,  as  he  was  of 
independent  means. 

Altogether,  he  would  seem  to  have  cleared 
himself  effectually.  Still  the  knocking  con- 
tinued, and  night  after  night  the  accusation 
was  repeated.  He  now  resorted,  therefore, 
to  a  radical  step  to  convince  the  public  that  he 
was  the  victim  of  a  monstrous  fraud. 

Asserting  that  little  Miss  Parsons  herself 
produced  the  mysterious  sounds,  and  that  she 
did  so  at  the  instigation  of  her  father,  he  se- 
cured an  order  for  her  removal  to  the  house  of 
a  friend  of  his,  a  Clerkenwell  clergyman.  Here 
a  decisive  failure  was  recorded  against  the 
ghost.  It  had  promised  that  it  would  knock 
on  the  coffin  containing  Mrs.  Knight's  re- 
mains; and  about  one  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
after  hours  of  silent  watching,  during  which 
the  spirit  gave  not  a  sign  of  its  presence,  the 
entire  company  adjourned  to  the  church.  Only 
one  member  was  found  of  sufficient  boldness 
to  plunge  with  Knight  into  the  gloomy  depths 


94       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

where  the  dead  lay  entombed;  and  that  one 
bore  out  his  statement  that  never  a  knock  had 
been  heard.  The  girl  was  urged  to  confess, 
but  persisted  in  her  assertions  that  the  ghost 
was  in  nowise  of  her  making. 

Afterward,  when  the  knocking  had  been 
resumed  under  more  favorable  auspices,  word 
came  from  the  unseen  world  that  the  fiasco  in 
the  church  was  ascribable  to  the  very  good 
reason  that  Knight  had  caused  his  wife's 
coffin  to  be  secretly  removed.  "I  will  show 
them ! "  cried  the  desperate  man.  With  clergy- 
man, sexton,  and  undertaker,  he  visited  the 
vaults  once  more  and  not  only  identified  but 
opened  the  coffin. 

Meanwhile  all  London  was  flocking  to  Cock 
Lane  as  to  a  raree-show,  on  foot,  on  horseback, 
in  vehicles  of  every  description.  Some,  like 
the  celebrated  Dr.  Johnson  who  took  part  in 
the  coffin  opening  episode  in  Clerkenwell, 
were  animated  by  scientific  zeal ;  but  idle  curi- 
osity inspired  the  great  majority.  The  gossip- 
ing Walpole,  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Montagu, 
has  left  a  graphic  picture  of  the  stir  created 
by  the  newspaper  reports. 

"I  went  to  hear  it,"  he  writes;  "for  it  is  not 
an  apparition  but  an  audition.  We  set  out 


The  Cock  Lane  Ghost  95 

from  the  opera,  changed  our  clothes  at  North- 
umberland House,  the  Duke  of  York,  Lady 
Northumberland,  Lady  Mary  Coke,  Lord 
Hertford,  and  I,  all  in  one  hackney  coach, 
and  drove  to  the  spot;  it  rained  in  torrents; 
yet  the  lane  was  full  of  mob,  and  the  house  so 
full  we  could  not  get  in ;  at  last  they  discovered 
it  was  the  Duke  of  York,  and  the  company 
squeezed  themselves  into  one  another's  pock- 
ets to  make  room  for  us.  The  house,  which 
is  borrowed,  and  to  which  the  ghost  has  ad- 
journed, is  wretchedly  small  and  miserable; 
when  we  opened  the  chamber,  in  which  were 
fifty  people  with  no  light  but  one  tallow  candle 
at  the  end,  we  tumbled  over  the  bed  of  the 
child  to  whom  the  ghost  comes,  and  whom 
they  are  murdering  by  inches  in  such  insuffer- 
able heat  and  stench.  At  the  top  of  the  room 
are  clothes  to  dry.  I  asked  if  we  were  to  have 
rope  dancing  between  the  acts.  We  heard 
nothing;  they  told  us  (as  they  would  at  a 
puppet  show)  that  it  would  not  come  that 
night  till  seven  in  the  morning,  that  is,  when 
there  are  only  prentices  and  old  women.  We 
stayed,  however,  till  half  an  hour  after  one." 

The  skepticism   patent  in  this  letter  was 
shared    by    all    thinking    men.     Letter    after 


96       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

letter  of  criticism,  even  of  abuse,  was  poured 
into  the  newspapers.  No  less  a  personage 
than  Oliver  Goldsmith  wrote,  under  the  title 
of  "  The  Mystery  Revealed,"  a  long  pamphlet 
which  was  intended  both  to  explain  away  the 
disturbances  and  to  defend  the  luckless  Knight. 
The  actor  Garrick  dragged  into  a  prologue  a 
riming  and  sneering  reference  to  the  mystery; 
the  artist  Hogarth  invoked  his  genius  to  deride 
it.  Yet  there  were  believers  in  plenty,  and 
there  even  seem  to  have  been  some  who  thought 
of  preying  on  the  credulous  by  opening  up  a 
business  in  "knocking  ghosts." 

"On  Tuesday  last,"  one  reads  in  The 
Chronicle,  "it  was  given  out  that  a  new  knock- 
ing ghost  was  to  perform  that  evening  at  a 
house  in  Broad  Court  near  Bow  Street,  Covent 
Garden;  information  of  which  being  given  to 
a  certain  magistrate  in  the  neighborhood,  he 
sent  his  compliments  with  an  intimation  that 
it  should  not  meet  with  that  lenity  the  Cock 
Lane  ghost  did,  but  that  it  should  knock 
hemp  in  Bridewell.  On  which  the  ghost  very 
discreetly  omitted  the  intended  exhibition." 

Whether  or  no  he  took  a  hint  from  this 
publication,  it  is  certain  that,  finding  all  other 
means  failing,  Knight  now  resolved  to  try  to 


The  Cock  Lane  Ghost  97 

lay  by  legal  process  the  ghost  that  had  rendered 
him  the  most  unhappy  and  the  most  talked  of 
man  in  London.  Going  before  a  magistrate, 
he  brought  a  charge  of  criminal  conspiracy 
against  Clerk  Parsons,  Mrs.  Parsons,  the 
Parsons  servant,  the  clergyman  who  had 
aided  the  servant  in  eliciting  the  murder 
story  from  the  talkative  ghost,  and  a  Cock 
Lane  tradesman.  All  of  these,  he  alleged,  had 
banded  themselves  together  to  ruin  him,  their 
malice  arising  from  the  quarrel  which  had 
led  him  to  remove  to  Clerkenwell  and  enter 
a  lawsuit  against  Parsons.  The  girl  herself 
he  did  not  desire  punished,  because  she  was 
too  young  to  understand  the  evil  that  she 
wrought.  Warrants  were  forthwith  issued, 
and,  protesting  their  innocence  frantically,  the 
accused  were  dragged  to  prison. 

Their  conviction  soon  followed,  after  a  trial 
of  which  the  only  obtainable  evidence  is  that 
it  was  held  at  the  Guildhall  before  a  special 
jury  and  was  presided  over  by  Lord  Mans- 
field. Then,  "the  court  desiring  that  Mr. 

K ,  who  had  been  so  much  injured  on  this 

occasion,  should  receive  some  reparation,"* 
sentence  was  deferred  for  several  months. 

*  The  Annual  Register  for  1762. 


98       Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

This  enabled  the  clergyman  and  the  tradesman 
"to  purchase  their  pardon"  by  the  payment 
of  some  five  hundred  or  six  hundred  pounds 
to  Knight.  But  the  clerk  either  would  not  or 
could  not  pay  a  farthing,  and  on  him  and  his, 
sentence  was  now  passed.  "The  father,"  to 
quote  once  more  from  the  meager  account  in 
The  Annual  Register,  "was  ordered  to  be 
set  in  the  pillory  three  times  in  one  month, 
once  at  the  end  of  Cock  Lane,  and  after  that 
to  be  imprisoned  two  years;  Elizabeth  his 
wife,  one  year ;  and  Mary  Frazer,  six  months  to 
Bridewell,  and  to  be  kept  there  to  hard  labor." 
Thus,  in  wig  and  gown,  did  the  law  solemnly 
and  severely  place  the  seal  of  disbelief  on  the 
Cock  Lane  ghost;  which,  it  is  worth  observing, 
seems  to  have  vanished  forever  the  moment  the 
arrests  were  made. 

But,  looking  back  at  the  case  from  the 
vantage  point  of  chronological  distance  and 
of  recent  research  into  kindred  affairs,  it  is 
difficult  to  accept  as  final  the  verdict  reached 
by  the  "special  jury"  and  concurred  in  by 
the  public  opinion  of  the  day.  It  is  prepos- 
terous to  suppose  that  for  so  slight  a  cause  as 
a  dispute  over  twelve  pounds  Clerk  Parsons 


The  Cock  Lane  Ghost  99 

and  his  associates  would  conspire  to  ruin  a 
man's  reputation  and  if  possible  to  take  his 
life;  and  still  more  preposterous  to  imagine 
that  they  would  adopt  such  a  means  to  attain 
this  end.  Of  course,  they  may  have  had 
stronger  reasons  for  being  hostile  to  Knight 
than  appears  from  the  published  facts.  Yet 
it  is  significant  that  when  the  clerk  was  placed 
in  the  pillory  he  seemed  to  "be  out  of  his 
mind,"  and  so  evident  was  his  misery  that  the 
assembled  mob  "instead  of  using  him  ill, 
made  a  handsome  collection  for  him." 

The  more  likely,  nay  the  only  defensible 
solution  of  the  problem,  is  that  he,  his  fellow 
sufferers,  and  Knight  himself  were  one  and  all 
the  victims  of  the  uncontrollable  impulses  of 
a  hysterical  child.  The  case  bears  too  strong 
a  resemblance  to  the  Tedworth  and  Epworth 
disturbances  to  admit  of  any  other  hypothesis. 
Not  that  the  Parsons  girl  is  to  be  placed  on 
exactly  the  same  footing  as  the  Mompes- 
son  children  and  Hetty  Wesley,  and  held  to 
some  extent  responsible  for  the  mischievous 
phenomena  she  produced. 

On  the  contrary,  the  more  one  studies  the 
evidence  the  stronger  grows  the  conviction 
that  in  her  we  have  a  striking  and  singular  in- 


100     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

stance  of  "dissociation."  She  was,  it  is  very 
evident,  strongly  attached  to  the  unfortunate 
Mrs.  Knight,  doubtless  felt  keenly  the  separa- 
tion from  her,  and,  whether  consciously  or 
subconsciously,  would  cherish  a  grudge  against 
Knight  as  the  cause  of  that  separation.  The 
news  of  Mrs.  Knight's  death  would  come  as  a 
great  shock,  and  might  easily  act,  so  to  speak, 
as  the  fulcrum  of  the  lever  of  mental  disintegra- 
tion. Then,  dimly  enough  at  first  but  soon 
with  portentous  rapidity,  her  disordered  con- 
sciousness would  conceive  the  idea  that  her 
friend  had  been  murdered  and  that  it  was  her 
duty  to  bring  the  slayer  to  justice.  From  this 
it  would  be  an  easy  step  to  the  development, 
in  the  neurotic  child,  of  a  full  fledged  second- 
ary personality,  akin  to  that  found  in  the 
spiritistic  mediums  of  later  times. 

Now,  for  the  first  time,  her  faculties  would 
seem  to  her  astonished  parents  to  be  in  the 
keeping  and  under  the  control  of  an  extraneous 
being,  a  departed,  discarnate  spirit;  and  in 
this  error  she  and  they  would  be  confirmed  by 
the  suggestions  and  foolish  questions  of  those 
who  came  to  marvel.  It  needed  another  great 
shock  —  there  being  in  those  days  no  Janet  or 
Prince  or  Sidis  to  take  charge  of  the  case  — 


The  Cock  Lane  Ghost  101 

the  shock  of  the  arrest  and  imprisonment  of 
her  parents,  to  effect  at  least  partial  reintegra- 
tion  and  the  consequent  disappearance  of  the 
secondary  self,  the  much  debated,  malevolent 
Cock  Lane  ghost. 


VI 

THE  GHOST  SEEN  BY  LORD  BROUGHAM 

IT  is  comparatively  easy,  when  seated  before 
a  roaring  fire  in  a  well-lighted  room,  to 
sneer  ghosts  out  of  existence,  and  roundly 
affirm  that  they  are  without  exception  the 
fanciful  products  of  a  heated  imagination. 
But  the  matter  takes  on  a  very  different  com- 
plexion, when  in  that  same  room  and  without 
so  much  as  the  opening  of  a  door,  one  is  unex- 
pectedly confronted  by  the  figure  of  an  absent 
friend,  who,  it  subsequently  appears,  is  about 
that  time  breathing  his  last  in  another  part  of 
the  world.  Especially  would  it  seem  impos- 
sible to  remain  skeptical  if  there  existed  be- 
tween oneself  and  the  friend  in  question  a 
compact,  drawn  up  years  before  in  an  access  of 
youthful  enthusiasm,  binding  whichever  should 
die  first  to  appear  to  the  other  at  the  moment 
of  death. 

This,  as  all  students  of  ghostology  are  aware, 
has  frequently  been  the  case;  and  it  was  pre- 
cisely the  case  with  the  ghost  seen  by  the 
102 


The  Ghost  Seen  by  Lord  Brougham     103 

famous  Lord  Brougham,  the  brilliant  and 
versatile  Scotchman,  whose  astonishingly  long 
and  successful  career  in  England  as  statesman, 
judge,  lawyer,  man  of  science,  philanthropist, 
orator,  and  author  won  him  a  place  among  the 
immortals  both  of  the  Georgian  and  of  the 
Victorian  era. 

At  the  time  he  saw  the  ghost  he  was  still  a 
young  man,  thinking  far  less  of  what  the 
future  might  hold  than  of  the  pleasures  of  the 
present.  In  fact,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a 
more  unlikely  subject  for  a  ghostly  experience. 
From  his  earliest  youth,  his  father,  a  most 
matter  of  fact  person,  sedulously  endeavored 
to  impress  him  with  the  belief  that  the  only 
spirits  deserving  of  the  name  were  those  which 
came  in  oddly  labeled  bottles;  and  in  support 
of  this  view  the  elder  Brougham  frequently 
related  the  adventures  of  sundry  persons  of 
his  acquaintance  who  had  engaged  in  the 
mischievous  pastime  of  ghost  hunting.  Added 
to  the  natural  effect  of  such  tales  as  these  was 
the  inherent  exuberance  of  Brougham's  dis- 
position and  the  bent  of  his  mind  to  mathe- 
matics and  kindred  exact  sciences. 

It  was  at  the  Edinburgh  high  school  that 
he  first  met  his  future  ghost,  who  at  the  time 


104     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

was  a  youngster  like  himself,  and  became  and 
long  remained  his  most  intimate  friend.  The 
two  lads  were  graduated  together  from  the 
high  school,  and  together  matriculated  into 
the  university,  where,  in  the  intervals  Broug- 
ham could  spare  from  his  favorite  studies  and 
recreations,  and  from  the  company  of  the 
daredevil  students  with  whom  he  soon  began 
to  associate,  they  continued  their  old  time 
walks  and  talks. 

On  one  of  these  walks,  the  conversation 
happened  to  turn  to  the  perennial  problem  of 
life  beyond  the  grave  and  the  possibility  of 
the  dead  communicating  with  the  living 
Brougham,  mindful  of  the  views  maintained 
by  his  father,  doubtless  treated  the  subject 
lightly,  if  not  scoffingly;  but  one  word  led  to 
another,  until  finally,  in  what  he  afterward 
described  as  a  moment  of  folly,  he  covenanted 
with  his  friend  that  whichever  of  them  should 
happen  to  pass  from  earth  first  would,  if  it 
were  at  all  possible,  show  himself  in  spirit  to 
the  other,  and  thus  prove  beyond  peradven- 
ture  that  the  soul  of  man  survived  the  death 
of  the  body. 

So  far  as  Brougham  was  concerned,   this 
undertaking    was    speedily    forgotten    in    the 


The  Ghost  Seen  by  Lord  Brougham     105 

pressure  of  the  many  activities  into  which  he 
plunged  with  all  the  ardor  of  his  impetuous 
nature.  His  days  were  given  wholly  to  the 
pursuit  of  knowledge;  his  nights  to  the  pur- 
suit of  pleasure,  as  pleasure  was  then  counted 
by  the  roystering  young  Scotchmen,  whose 
favorite  resort  was  the  tavern,  and  whose  most 
popular  pastime  was  filching  signs,  bell  handles, 
and  knockers,  and  stirring  the  city  guard  to 
unwonted  energy.  Under  such  conditions 
neither  the  death  pact  nor  the  solemn  minded 
youth  with  whom  he  had  made  it  could  remain 
long  in  his  memory;  and  it  is  not  surprising  to 
find  that  with  the  end  of  college  life  and  the  re- 
moval of  his  boyhood's  friend  to  India,  where 
he  entered  the  civil  service,  they  soon  became 
as  strangers  to  each  other. 

Brougham  himself  remained  in  Edinburgh 
to  read  for  the  law,  and  incidentally  to  develop 
with  the  aid  of  an  amateur  debating  society 
the  oratorical  talents  that  were  in  time  to  make 
him  the  logical  successor  of  Pitt,  Fox,  and 
Burke  in  the  House  of  Commons.  He  con- 
tinued none  the  less  a  lover  of  pleasure,  some 
of  which,  however,  he  now  took  in  the  healthy 
form  of  long  walking  trips  through  the  High- 
lands. In  this  way  he  acquired  a  desire  for 


106     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

travel,  and  when,  in  the  autumn  of  1799,  an 
opportunity  came  for  an  extended  tour  of 
Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway,  he  grasped 
it  eagerly.  Together  with  the  future  diplomat, 
Lord  Stuart  of  Rothsay,  then  plain  Charles 
Stuart  and  the  boon  companion  of  many  a 
pedestrian  excursion,  he  sailed  for  Copen- 
hagen late  in  September,  and  by  leisurely 
stages  made  his  way  thence  to  Stockholm, 
alive  to  all  the  varied  interests  of  the  novel 
scenes  in  which  he  found  himself;  but  en- 
countering little  that  was  exciting  or  adven- 
turous, until,  after  a  prolonged  sojourn  in  the 
Swedish  capital  and  a  brief  visit  to  Goteborg, 
he  started  for  Norway. 

By  this  time  the  weather  had  turned  so  cold 
that  the  travelers  resolved  to  bring  their  tour 
to  a  sudden  end,  and  to  press  on  as  rapidly 
as  the  bad  roads  would  permit  to  some  Nor- 
wegian port,  where  they  hoped  to  find  a  ship 
that  would  carry  them  back  to  Scotland.  Ac- 
cordingly, leaving  Goteborg  early  in  the  morn- 
ing of  December  19,  they  journeyed  steadily 
until  after  midnight,  when  they  came  to  an 
inn  that  seemed  to  promise  comfortable 
sleeping  accommodations.  Stuart  lost  no 
time  in  going  to  bed;  but  Brougham  decided 


The  Ghost  Seen  by  Lord  Brougham      107 

to  wait  until  a  hot  bath  could  be  prepared  for 
him. 

Plunging  into  it,  and  forgetful  of  everything 
save  the  warmth  that  was  doubly  welcome 
after  the  cold  of  the  long  drive,  he  suddenly 
became  aware  that  he  was  not  alone  in  the 
room.  No  door  had  opened,  not  a  footstep 
had  been  heard ;  but  in  the  light  of  the  flicker- 
ing candles  he  plainly  saw  the  figure  of  a  man 
seated  in  the  chair  on  which  he  had  carelessly 
thrown  his  clothes.  And  this  figure  he  in- 
stantly recognized  as  that  of  his  early  playmate, 
the  forgotten  chum  who,  as  he  well  knew,  had 
years  before  gone  from  the  land  of  the  heather 
to  the  land  of  the  blazing  sun.  Yet  here  he 
sat,  in  the  quaintly  furnished  sleeping  chamber 
of  a  Swedish  roadside  inn,  gazing  composedly 
at  his  astounded  friend.  At  once  there  flashed 
into  Brougham's  mind  remembrance  of  the 
death  pact,  and  he  leaped  from  the  bath,  only 
to  lose  all  consciousness  and  fall  headlong  to 
the  floor.  When  he  revived,  the  apparition 
had  disappeared. 

There  was  little  sleep  for  the  hard  headed 
Scotchman  that  night.  The  vision  had  been 
too  definite,  the  shock  too  intense.  But, 
dressing,  he  sat  down  and  strove  to  debate  the 


108     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

matter  in  the  light  of  cold  reason.  He  must, 
he  argued,  have  dozed  off  in  the  bath  and  ex- 
perienced a  strange  dream.  To  be  sure,  he 
had  not  been  thinking  of  his  old  comrade,  and 
for  years  had  had  no  communication  with 
him.  Nor  had  anything  taken  place  during 
the  tour  to  bring  to  memory  either  him  or  any 
member  of  his  family,  or  to  turn  Brougham's 
mind  to  thoughts  of  India.  Still,  he  found  it 
impossible  to  believe  that  he  had  seen  a  ghost. 
At  most,  he  reiterated  to  himself,  it  could  have 
been  nothing  more  than  an  exceptionally  clear 
cut  dream.  And  to  this  opinion  he  stubbornly 
adhered,  notwithstanding  the  receipt,  soon 
after  his  return  to  Edinburgh,  of  a  letter  from 
India  announcing  the  death  of  the  friend  who 
had  been  so  mysteriously  recalled  to  his  recol- 
lection, and  giving  December  19  as  the  date 
of  death.  More  than  sixty  years  later  we 
find  him,  in  his  autobiography  commenting, 
on  the  experience  anew,  granting  that  it  was 
a  strange  coincidence  but  refusing  to  admit 
that  it  was  anything  more  than  the  coincidence 
of  a  dream. 

It  was  in  his  autobiography,  by  the  way, 
that  he  first  referred  to  the  confirmatory  letter. 
This  fact,  taken  in  connection  with  his  repu- 


The  Ghost  Seen  by  Lord  Brougham     109 

tation  for  holding  the  truth  in  light  esteem 
and  with  several  vague  and  puzzling  state- 
ments contained  in  the  detailed  account  of 
the  experience  itself  as  set  forth  in  his  journal 
of  the  Scandinavian  tour,  has  led  some  critics 
to  make  the  suggestion  that  his  narrative  par- 
takes of  the  nature  of  fiction  rather  than  of  a 
sober  recital  of  facts.  Against  this,  however, 
must  be  set  Brougham's  complete  and  in- 
vincible repugnance  to  accept  at  face  value 
anything  bordering  on  the  supernatural.  He 
took  no  pleasure  in  the  thought  that  he  had 
possibly  been  the  recipient  of  a  visit  from  a 
departed  spirit.  On  the  contrary,  it  annoyed 
him,  and  he  sought  earnestly  to  find  a  natural 
explanation  for  an  occurrence  which  remained 
unique  throughout  his  long  life.  No  one 
would  have  been  readier  to  point  out  the 
futility  of  the  apparition  if  the  absent  friend 
had  really  continued  hale  and  hearty  after 
December  19.  And  it  is  therefore  reasonable 
to  assume  that  had  he  wished  to  falsify  at  all, 
he  would  have  given  an  altogether  different 
sequel  to  the  story  of  his  vision  or  dream,  as 
he  preferred  to  call  it,  though  the  evidence 
which  he  himself  furnishes  shows  that  he  was 
not  asleep. 


110     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

The  question  still  remains,  of  course, 
whether  he  was  justified  in  dismissing  it  as  a 
sheer  chance  coincidence.  If  it  stood  by  itself, 
it  would  obviously  be  permissible  to  accept 
this  explanation  as  all  sufficient.  But  the 
fact  is  that  it  is  only  one  of  many  similar  in- 
stances. This  was  strikingly  brought  out 
only  a  few  years  ago  through  a  far  reaching 
inquiry,  a  "census  of  hallucinations,"  instituted 
by  a  special  committee  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research. 

Enlisting  the  services  of  some  four  hundred 
"collectors,"  the  committee  instructed  each 
of  these  to  address  to  twenty-five  adults, 
selected  at  random,  the  query,  "Have  you 
ever,  when  believing  yourself  to  be  completely 
awake,  had  a  vivid  impression  of  seeing  or 
being  touched  by  a  living  being  or  inanimate 
object,  or  of  hearing  a  voice ;  which  impression, 
so  far  as  you  could  discover,  was  not  due  to  any 
external  physical  cause?"  In  all,  seventeen 
thousand  people  were  thus  questioned,  and 
almost  ten  per  cent,  of  the  answers  received 
proved  to  be  in  the  affirmative.  More  than  this, 
it  appeared  that  out  of  a  total  of  three  hundred 
and  fifty  recognized  apparitions  of  living  per- 
sons, no  fewer  than  sixty-five  were  "death 


The  Ghost  Seen  by  Lord  Brougham     111 

coincidences,"  in  which  the  hallucinatory  ex- 
perience occurred  within  from  one  hour  to 
twelve  hours  after  the  death  of  the  person  seen. 

Sifting  these  death  coincidences  carefully, 
the  committee  for  various  reasons  rejected 
more  than  half,  and  at  the  same  time  raised 
the  total  of  recognized  apparitions  of  living 
persons  from  three  hundred  and  fifty  to 
thirteen  hundred.  This  was  done  in  order  to 
make  generous  allowance  for  the  number  of 
such  apparitions  forgotten  by  those  to  whom 
the  question  had  been  put,  investigation  show- 
ing that  the  great  majority  of  hallucinations 
reported  were  given  as  of  comparatively  re- 
cent occurrence,  and  that  there  was  a  rapid 
decrease  as  the  years  of  occurrence  became 
more  remote. 

As  a  final  result,  therefore,  the  committee 
found  about  thirty  death  coincidences  out  of 
thirteen  hundred  cases,  or  a  proportion  of  one 
in  forty-three.  Computing  from  the  average 
annual  death-rate  for  England  and  Wales,  it 
was  calculated  that  the  probability  that  any 
one  person  would  die  on  a  given  day  was 
about  one  in  nineteen  thousand;  in  other 
words,  out  of  every  nineteen  thousand  appari- 
tions of  living  persons,  there  should  occur, 


112     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

by  chance  alone,  one  death  coincidence. 
The  actual  proportion,  however,  as  established 
by  the  inquiry,  was  equivalent  to  about  four 
hundred  and  forty  in  nineteen  thousand,  or 
four  hundred  and  forty  times  the  most  prob- 
able number,  and  this  when  the  apparitions 
reported  were  considered  merely  collectively  as 
having  been  seen  at  any  time  within  twelve 
hours  after  death.  Not  a  few,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  were  reported  as  having  been  seen  within 
one  hour  after  death,  and  for  these  the  im- 
probability of  occurrence  by  chance  alone  was 
manifestly  twelve  times  four  hundred  and 
forty.  In  view  of  these  considerations  the 
committee  felt  warranted  in  declaring  that 
"between  deaths  and  apparitions  of  dying 
persons  a  connection  exists  which  is  not  due 
to  chance."* 

Had  Lord  Brougham  lived  to  study  the 
statistics  of  this  remarkable  census  of  hallucina- 
tions, he  might  have  formed  a  higher  opinion  of 
his  ghost;  but  he  would  also  have  been  in  a 
better  position  to  deny  its  supernatural  attri- 
butes. For,  if  the  Society  for  Psychical  Re- 
search has  made  it  impossible  to  doubt  the 

*  The  committee's  report  will  be  found  in  the  tenth  volume  of  the 
"Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research." 


The  Ghost  Seen  by  Lord  Brougham     113 

existence  of  such  ghosts  as  that  which  he  be- 
held during  his  travels  in  Sweden,  it  has  like- 
wise made  discoveries  which  afford  a  really 
substantial  reason  for  asserting  that  they  no 
more  hail  from  the  world  beyond  than  do 
ghosts  that  are  unmistakably  the  creations  of 
fancy  or  fraud.  This  results  from  the  so- 
ciety's investigations  of  thought  transference 
or  telepathy,  to  use  the  term  now  commonly 
employed. 

At  an  early  stage  of  the  experiments  under- 
taken to  determine  the  possibility  of  trans- 
mitting thought  from  mind  to  mind  without 
the  intervention  of  any  known  means  of  com- 
munication, it  was  found  that  when  success 
attended  the  efforts  of  the  experimenters  the 
telepathic  message  was  frequently  received 
not  in  the  form  of  pure  thought  but  as  a 
hallucinatory  image;  and  what  is  still  more 
important  in  the  present  connection,  it  was 
further  found  possible  so  to  produce  not 
merely  images  of  cards,  flowers,  books,  and 
other  inanimate  objects,  but  also  images  of 
living  persons. 

Thus,  as  chronicled  with  corroborative  evi- 
dence in  the  society's  "Proceedings,"  an 
English  clergyman  named  Godfrey  telepathi- 


114     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

cally  caused  a  distant  friend  to  see  an  appa- 
rition of  him  one  night;  the  same  result  was 
achieved  by  a  Mr.  Sinclair  of  New  Jersey, 
who,  during  a  visit  to  New  York,  succeeded 
in  projecting  a  phantasm  of  himself  which 
was  clearly  seen  by  his  wife  in  Lake  wood ;  and 
similarly  a  Mr.  Kirk,  while  seated  in  his  Lon- 
don office,  paid  a  telepathic  visit  to  the  home 
of  a  young  woman,  who  saw  him  as  distinctly  as 
though  he  had  gone  there  in  the  flesh.  In  all  of 
these,  as  in  other  cases  recorded  by  the  so- 
ciety, the  persons  to  whom  the  apparitions 
were  vouchsafed  had  no  idea  that  any  experi- 
ment of  the  kind  was  being  attempted. 

Indeed,  there  is  on  record  an  apparently 
well  authenticated  instance  of  the  experimental 
production  of  an  apparition  not  of  the  living 
but  of  the  dead.  This  occurred  in  Germany 
many  years  ago,  when  a  certain  Herr  Weser- 
mann  undertook  to  "will"  a  military  friend 
into  dreaming  of  a  woman  who  had  long  been 
dead.  The  sequel  may  be  related  in  Herr 
Wesermann's  own  words: 

"A  lady,  who  had  been  dead  five  years,  was 
to  appear  to  Lieutenant  N.  in  a  dream  at 
10.30  P.M.,  and  incite  him  to  good  deeds. 
At  half -past  ten,  contrary  to  expectation,  Herr 


The  Ghost  Seen  by  Lord  Brougham     115 

N.  had  not  gone  to  bed  but  was  discussing  the 
French  campaign  with  his  friend  Lieutenant 
S.  in  the  ante-room.  Suddenly  the  door  of  the 
room  opened,  the  lady  entered  dressed  in 
white,  with  a  black  kerchief  and  uncovered 
head,  greeted  S.  with  her  hand  three  times  in  a 
friendly  manner;  then  turned  to  N.,  nodded 
to  him,  and  returned  again  through  the  door- 
way. 

"As  this  story,  related  to  me  by  Lieutenant 
N.,  seemed  to  be  too  remarkable  from  a 
psychological  point  of  view  for  the  truth  of  it 
not  to  be  duly  established,  I  wrote  to  Lieuten- 
ant S.,  who  was  living  six  miles  away,  and 
asked  him  to  give  me  his  account  of  it.  He 
sent  me  the  following  reply : 

'"On  the  thirteenth  of  March,  1817,  Herr 
N.  came  to  pay  me  a  visit  at  my  lodgings  about 
a  league  from  A  — .  He  stayed  the  night 
with  me.  After  supper,  and  when  we  were 
both  undressed,  I  was  sitting  on  my  bed  and 
Herr  N.  was  standing  by  the  door  of  the  next 
room  on  the  point  also  of  going  to  bed.  This  was 
about  half -past  ten.  We  were  speaking  partly 
about  indifferent  subjects  and  partly  about 
the  events  of  the  French  campaign.  Sud- 
denly the  door  of  the  kitchen  opened  without 


116     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

a  sound,  and  a  lady  entered,  very  pale,  taller 
than  Herr  N.,  about  five  feet  four  inches  in 
height,  strong  and  broad  of  figure,  dressed  in 
white,  but  with  a  large  black  kerchief  which 
reached  to  below  the  waist. 

"'She  entered  with  bare  head,  greeted  me 
with  the  hand  three  times  in  complimentary 
fashion,  turned  round  to  the  left  toward  Herr 
N.,  and  waved  her  hand  to  him  three  times; 
after  which  the  figure  quietly,  and  again  with- 
out any  creaking  of  the  door,  went  out.  We 
followed  at  once  in  order  to  discover  whether 
there  were  any  deception,  but  found  nothing. 
The  strangest  thing  was  this,  that  our  night- 
watch  of  two  men  whom  I  had  shortly  found 
on  the  watch  were  now  asleep,  though  at  my 
first  call  they  were  on  the  alert;  and  that  the 
door  of  the  room,  which  always  opens  with  a 
good  deal  of  noise,  did  not  make  the  slightest 
sound  when  opened  by  the  figure.'"* 

It  is  also  significant  that,  as  was  made 
evident  by  the  census  of  hallucinations,  by 
far  the  larger  number  of  apparitions  re- 
ported are  those  of  persons  still  alive  and 
well.  In  these  cases,  nobody  being  dead,  it 

*  Translation  from  the  "  Journal  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,"  Vol.  IV.  p.  218. 


The  Ghost  Seen  by  Lord  Brougham      117 

is  absurd  *  to  raise  the  cry  of  spirits,  and  the 
only  tenable  hypothesis  is  that,  through  one  of 
the  several  causes  which  seem  to  quicken  tele- 
pathic action,  a  spontaneous  telepathic  hal- 
lucination has  been  produced.  Now,  the 
experiments  conducted  by  the  society  and  by 
independent  investigators  have  shown  that 
telepathic  messages  often  lie  dormant  for 
hours  beneath  the  threshold  of  the  receiver's 
consciousness,  being  consciously  apprehended 
only  when  certain  favoring  conditions  arise; 
as,  for  example,  when  the  receiver  has  fallen 
asleep,  or  into  a  state  of  reverie,  or  when, 
tired  out  after  a  long  day's  work,  he  has 
utterly  relaxed  mentally.  This  is  technically 

*  I  had  originally  written  "  impossible,"  but  a  critic  of  my 
"  Riddle  of  Personality,"  in  which  this  point  was  taken  up,  has 
convinced  me  that  "  absurd  "  is  the  better  word.  The  critic  in 
question  writes :  "  what  evidence  has  the  author  that  an  apparition 
of  the  living  is  not  a  spirit?  Why  may  not  the  spirit  of  the  living 
person  have  left  his  body  and  appeared  to  his  friend  ?  Such  is 
the  view  of  many  people,  and  it  coincides  with  certain  phenomena 
in  dreams."  But,  to  raise  only  one  objection:  If  the  apparition 
appear  at  a  moment  when  the  person  seen  is  actively  engaged 
elsewhere  —  it  may  be  in  writing  a  book,  or  preaching  a  sermon 
—  what  is  it  that  is  seen,  and  what  is  it  that  is  writing  or  preach- 
ing ?  Is  the  "  spirit  "  present  in  both  places  at  the  same  time  — 
in  the  shadowy  apparition,  and  in  the  living,  breathing,  busily- 
occupied  human  entity?  Assuredly,  if  it  be  not  "impossible" 
to  raise  the  cry  of  spirits  in  such  a  case,  it  would  at  all  events 
seem «•"  absurd  "  to  do  so. 


118    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

known  as  "deferred  percipience,"  and,  con- 
sidered in  conjunction  with  the  discoveries 
mentioned,  it  is  amply  sufficient  to  dislodge 
from  the  realm  of  the  supernatural  the  ghost 
seen  by  Lord  Brougham,  and  every  ghost 
that  is  not  a  mere  imposter. 

In  the  Brougham  case  the  exciting  cause  of 
the  hallucination  seems  to  have  been  the 
death  pact.  As  he  lay  dying  in  India,  the 
mind  of  the  whilom  schoolboy  would,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  revert  to  that  agree- 
ment with  the  friend  of  his  youth,  and  thence 
would  arise  the  desire  to  let  him  know  that 
the  plighted  word  had  not  been  forgotten. 
Across  the  vast  intervening  space,  by  what 
mechanism  we  as  yet  do  not  know,  the  mes- 
sage would  flash  instantaneously,  to  remain 
unapprehended,  perhaps  for  hours  after  the 
death  of  the  sender,  until,  in  the  quiet  of  the 
Swedish  inn  and  resting  from  the  fatigues  of 
the  journey,  Brougham's  mental  faculties 
passed  momentarily  into  the  condition  neces- 
sary for  its  objective  realization. 

Then,  precisely  as  in  experimental  tele- 
pathy the  receiver  sees  a  hallucinatory  image 
of  the  trinket  or  the  book;  with  a  suddenness 
and  vividness  that  could  not  fail  to  shock  him, 


The  Ghost  Seen  by  Lord  Brougham     119 

the  message  would  find  expression  by  the 
creation  before  Brougham's  startled  eyes  of  a 
hallucinatory  image  of  the  friend  who,  as  he 
was  to  learn  later,  had  died  that  same  day 
thousands  of  miles  from  Sweden.  Knowing 
nothing  of  the  possibilities  of  the  human  mind, 
as  revealed,  if  only  faintly,  by  the  labors  of  a 
later  generation,  it  was  inevitable  he  should 
believe  he  had  no  alternative  between  dis- 
missing the  experience  as  a  peculiar  dream  or 
admitting  that  in  very  truth  he  had  looked 
upon  a  ghost. 


vn 

THE  SEERESS  OF  PREVORST 

MODERN  spiritism,  as  every  student 
of  that  fascinating  if  elusive  subject 
is  aware,  dates  from  the  closing  years  of  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  the 
celebrated  Fox  sisters,  whose  revelations  at 
that  time  served  to  crystallize  into  an  organized 
religious  system  the  idea  of  the  possibility 
of  communication  between  this  world  and 
the  world  beyond,  were  by  no  means  the  first 
of  spiritistic  mediums.  Long  before  their 
day  there  were  those  who  professed  to  have 
cognizance  of  things  unseen  and  to  act  as 
intermediaries  between  the  living  and  the 
dead;  and  although  lost  to  sight  amid  the 
throng  of  latter-day  claimants  to  similar 
powers,  the  achievements  of  some  of  these 
early  adventurers  into  the  unknown  have  not 
been  surpassed  by  the  best  performances  of 
the  Fox  girls  and  their  long  line  of  successors. 
Especially  is  this  true  of  the  mediumship 
of  a  young  German  woman,  Frederica  Hauffe, 
120 


The  Seer  ess  of  Prevorst  121 

who  in  the  course  of  her  short,  pitiful,  and 
tragic  career  is  credited  with  having  displayed 
more  varied  and  picturesque  supernatural 
gifts  than  the  most  renowned  wonder-worker 
of  to-day.  Like  many  modern  mediums  she 
was  of  humble  origin,  her  birthplace  being  a 
forester's  hut  in  the  Wiirtemberg  mountain 
village  of  Prevorst;  and  here,  among  wood- 
cutters and  charcoal-burners,  she  passed  the 
first  years  of  her  life.  Even  while  still  a  child 
she  seems  to  have  attracted  wide-spread 
attention  on  account  of  certain  peculiarities 
of  temperament  and  conduct.  It  was  noticed 
that  though  naturally  gay  and  playful  she 
occasionally  assumed  a  strangely  intent  and 
serious  manner;  that  in  her  happiest  moments 
she  was  subject  to  unaccountable  fits  of  shud- 
dering and  shivering;  and  that  she  seemed 
keenly  alive  not  merely  to  the  sights  and 
sounds  of  every-day  life  but  to  influences 
unfelt  by  those  about  her.  This  last  trait  re- 
ceived a  sudden  and  unexpected  development 
when,  at  the  age  of  twelve  or  thirteen,  she  was 
sent  to  the  neighboring  town  of  Lowenstein 
to  be  educated  under  the  care  of  her  grand- 
parents, a  worthy  couple  named  Schmidgall. 
Grandfather  Schmidgall  was  an  exceed- 


Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 


ingly  superstitious  old  man,  with  a  singular 
fondness  for  visiting  solitary  and  gloomy 
places,  particularly  churchyards;  and  he  soon 
began  to  take  the  little  girl  with  him  on  such 
strolls.  But  he  discovered,  much  to  his 
amazement,  that  though  she  listened  with 
avidity  to  the  tales  he  told  her  of  the  romantic 
and  mysterious  events  that  had  occurred 
within  the  somber  ruins  with  which  the 
countryside  was  liberally  endowed,  she  was 
reluctant  to  explore  those  ruins  or  wander 
among  the  graves  where  he  delighted  to  resort. 
At  first  he  was  inclined  to  ascribe  her  reluct- 
ance to  weak  and  sentimental  timidity,  but 
he  speedily  found  reason  to  adopt  an  alto- 
gether different  view.  He  noticed  that  when- 
ever he  took  her  to  graveyards  or  to  churches 
in  which  there  were  graves,  her  frail  form 
became  greatly  agitated,  and  at  times  she 
seemed  rooted  to  the  ground;  and  that  there 
were  certain  places,  especially  an  old  kitchen 
in  a  nearby  castle,  which  he  could  not  persuade 
her  to  enter,  and  the  mere  sight  of  which 
caused  her  to  quake  and  tremble.  "The 
child,"  he  told  his  wife,  *  'feels  the  presence 
of  the  dead,  and,  mark  you,  she  will  end  by 
seeing  the  dead." 


The  Seer  ess  of  Prevorst  123 

He  was,  therefore,  more  alarmed  than  sur- 
prised when  one  midnight,  long  after  he  had 
fancied  her  in  bed  and  asleep,  she  ran  to  his 
room  and  informed  him  that  she  had  just  be- 
held in  the  hall  a  tall,  dark  figure  which,  sigh- 
ing heavily,  passed  her  and  disappeared  in  the 
vestibule.  With  awe,  not  unmixed  with  satis- 
faction, Schmidgall  remembered  that  he  had 
once  seen  the  self -same  apparition;  but  he 
prudently  endeavored  to  convince  her  that 
she  had  been  dreaming  and  sent  her  back  to 
her  room,  which,  thenceforward,  he  never 
allowed  her  to  leave  at  night. 

In  this  way  Frederica  HauflVs  mediumship 
began.  But  several  years  were  to  pass  before 
she  saw  another  ghost  or  gave  evidence  of 
possessing  supernormal  powers  other  than  by 
occasional  dreams  of  a  prophetic  and  revela- 
tory nature.  In  the  meanwhile  she  rejoined 
her  parents  and  moved  with  them  from  Pre- 
vorst to  Oberstenfeld,  where,  in  her  nineteenth 
year,  she  was  married.  It  wTas  distinctly  a 
marriage  of  convenience,  arranged  without 
regard  to  her  wishes,  and  the  moment  the 
engagement  was  announced  she  secluded  her- 
self from  her  friends  and  passed  her  days  and 
nights  in  weeping.  For  weeks  together  she 


124     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

went  without  sleep,  ate  scarcely  anything, 
and  became  thin,  pale,  and  feeble.  It  was 
rumored  that  she  had  set  her  affections  in 
another  quarter:  but  her  relatives  angrily 
denied  this  and  asserted  that  once  married 
she  would  soon  become  herself  again. 

They  wrere  mistaken.  From  her  wedding 
day,  which  she  celebrated  by  attending  the 
funeral  of  a  venerable  clergyman  to  whom 
she  had  been  warmly  attached,  her  health 
broke  rapidly.  One  morning  she  awoke  in  a 
high  fever  that  lasted  a  fortnight  and  was 
followed  by  convulsive  spasms,  during  which 
she  beheld  at  the  bedside  the  image  of  her 
grandmother  Schmidgall,  who,  it  subsequently 
developed,  was  at  that  moment  dying  in  dis- 
tant Lowenstein.  The  spasms  continuing, 
despite  the  application  of  the  customary  rude 
remedies  of  the  time,  it  was  decided  to  send 
for  a  physician  with  some  knowledge  of  mes- 
merism, which  was  then  becoming  popular  in 
Germany.  To  the  astonishment  of  those  who 
thronged  the  sick  room,  the  first  touch  of  his 
hand  on  her  forehead  brought  relief.  The 
convulsions  ceased,  she  became  calm,  and 
presently  she  fell  asleep.  But  on  awaking 
she  was  attacked  as  before,  and  try  as  he 


The  Seeress  of  Prevorst  125 

might  the  physician  could  not  effect  a  perma- 
nent cure.  To  all  his  "  passes  "  she  responded 
with  gratifying  promptitude,  only  to  suffer 
a  relapse  the  moment  she  was  released  from 
the  mesmeric  influence. 

At  this  juncture  aid  was  received  from  a 
most  extraordinary  source,  according  to  the 
story  Frederica  told  her  wondering  friends. 
With  benign  visage  and  extended  hand,  the 
spirit  of  her  grandmother  appeared  to  her  for 
seven  successive  nights,  mesmerized  her,  and 
taught  her  how  to  mesmerize  herself.  The  re- 
sults of  this  visitation,  if  not  altogether  fortu- 
nate, were  at  least  to  some  extent  curative. 
There  were  periods  when  she  was  able  not 
merely  to  leave  her  bed  but  to  attend  to  house- 
hold duties  and  indulge  in  long  walks  and 
drives.  But  it  was  painfully  apparent  that 
she  was  still  in  a  precarious  condition. 

From  her  infancy  she  had  always  been 
powerfully  affected  by  the  touch  of  different 
metals,  and  now  this  phenomenon  was  inten- 
sified a  thousand -fold.  The  placing  of  a  mag- 
net on  her  forehead  caused  her  features  to  be 
contorted  as  though  by  a  stroke  of  paralysis; 
contact  with  glass  and  sand  made  her  catalep- 
tic. Once  she  was  found  seated  on  a  sand- 


126     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

stone  bench,  unable  to  move  hand  or  foot. 
About  this  time  also  she  acquired  the  faculty 
of  crystal-gazing;  that  is  to  say,  by  looking 
into  a  bowl  of  water  she  could  correctly  de- 
scribe scenes  transpiring  at  a  distance.  More 
than  this,  she  now  declared  that  behind  the 
persons  in  whose  company  she  was  she  per- 
ceived ghostly  forms,  some  of  which  she 
recognized  as  dead  acquaintances. 

Unlike  her  grandmother,  these  new  visitants 
from  the  unknown  world  did  not  provide  her 
with  the  means  of  regaining  her  lost  health. 
On  the  contrary,  from  the  time  they  first  put 
in  their  appearance  she  grew  far  worse,  suffer- 
ing not  so  much  from  convulsive  attacks  as 
from  an  increasing  lassitude.  She  complained 
that  eating  was  a  great  tax  on  her  strength, 
and  that  rising  and  walking  were  out  of  the 
question.  Unable  to  comprehend  this  new 
turn  of  affairs,  her  attendants  lost  all  patience, 
declared  that  if  she  had  made  up  her  mind 
to  die  she  might  as  well  do  so  as  at  once,  and 
tried  to  force  her  to  leave  her  bed.  Finally 
her  parents  intervened,  and  at  their  request 
she  was  brought  back  to  Oberstenfeld. 

Here  she  found  an  altogether  congenial 
environment,  and  for  a  while  showed  marked 


The  Seeress  of  Prevorst  127 

improvement.  Here  too,  and  in  a  most  sen- 
sational way,  her  mediumship  blossomed  into 
full  fruition.  She  had  been  home  for  only 
a  short  time  when  the  family  began  to  be  dis- 
turbed by  mysterious  noises  for  which  they 
could  find  no  cause.  A  sound  like  the  ring- 
ing of  glasses  was  frequently  heard,  as  were 
footsteps  and  knockings  on  the  walls.  Her 
father,  in  particular,  asserted  that  sometimes 
he  felt  a  strange  pressure  on  his  shoulder  or 
his  foot.  The  impression  grew  that  the  house, 
which  was  part  of  the  ancient,  picturesque, 
and  none  too  well  preserved  cathedral  of 
Oberstenfeld,  was  haunted  by  the  spirits  of 
its  former  occupants. 

One  night,  shortly  after  retiring  to  the  room 
which  they  shared  in  common,  Frederica,  her 
sister,  and  a  maid  servant  saw  a  lighted  candle, 
apparently  of  its  own  volition,  move  up  and 
down  the  table  on  which  it  was  burning.  The 
sister  and  the  servant  saw  nothing  more;  but 
Frederica  the  next  instant  beheld  a  thin, 
grayish  cloud,  which  presently  resolved  into 
the  form  of  a  man,  about  fifty  years  old, 
attired  in  the  costume  of  a  medieval  knight. 
Approaching,  this  strange  apparition  gazed 
steadfastly  at  her,  and  in  a  low  but  clear  tone 


128     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

urged  her  to  rise  and  follow  it,  saying  that  she 
alone  could  loosen  its  bonds.  Overcome  with 
terror,  she  cried  out  that  she  would  not  follow, 
then  ran  across  the  room  and  hid  herself  in 
the  bed  where  her  sister  and  the  servant  lay 
panic-stricken.  That  night  she  saw  no  more 
of  the  apparition:  but  the  maid,  whom  they 
sent  to  sleep  in  the  bed  she  had  so  hurriedly 
vacated,  declared  that  the  coverings  were 
forcibly  drawn  off  her  by  an  unseen  hand. 

The  next  night  the  apparition  appeared  to 
Frederica  again,  and  to  her  alone.  This  time 
it  seemed  not  sorrowful  but  angry,  and 
threatened  that  if  she  did  not  rise  and  follow 
she  would  be  hurled  out  of  the  window.  At 
her  bold  retort,  "In  the  name  of  Jesus,  do 
it!"  the  apparition  vanished,  to  return  a  few 
nights  later,  and  after  that  to  show  itself  to 
her  by  day  as  well  as  by  night. 

It  now  informed  her  that  it  was  the  ghost 
of  a  nobleman  named  Weiler,  who  had  slain 
his  brother  and  for  that  crime  was  condemned 
to  wander  ceaselessly  until  it  recovered  a  cer- 
tain piece  of  paper  hidden  in  a  vault  under 
the  cathedral.  On  hearing  this,  she  solemnly 
assured  it  that  by  prayer  alone  could  its 
sins  be  forgiven  and  pardon  obtained,  and 


The  Seeress  of  Prevorst  129 

thereupon  she  set  herself  to  teach  it  to  pray. 
Ultimately,  with  a  most  joyous  countenance, 
the  ghost  told  her  that  she  had  indeed  led  it  to 
its  Redeemer  and  won  its  release;  and  at  the 
same  time  seven  tiny  spirits  —  the  spirits  of 
the  children  it  had  had  on  earth  —  appeared 
in  a  circle  about  it  and  sang  melodiously. 
Nor  did  they  leave  her  until  the  protecting 
apparition  of  her  grandmother  interrupted 
their  thanksgivings  and  bade  them  be  gone. 

Whether  or  no  the  happy  ghost  notified 
others  in  kindred  plight  of  the  success  that 
had  attended  her  efforts,  it  is  certain  that,  if 
the  contemporary  records  are  to  be  accepted, 
the  few  short  years  of  life  remaining  to  her 
were  largely  occupied  in  ministering  to  the 
wants  of  distressed  spirits.  Phantom  monks, 
nobles,  peasants,  pressed  upon  her  with  terrible 
tales  of  misdeeds  unatoned,  and  begged  her 
to  instruct  them  in  the  prayers  which  were 
essential  to  salvation.  There  was  one  specially 
importunate  group,  the  apparitions  of  a  young 
man,  a  young  woman,  and  a  new-born  child 
wrapped  in  ghostly  rags,  which  gave  her  no 
peace  for  months.  The  child,  they  said,  was 
theirs  and  had  been  murdered  by  them,  and 
the  young  woman  in  her  turn  had  been  mur- 


130     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

dered  by  the  young  man.  Naturally,  they 
were  in  an  unhappy  frame  of  mind,  and  until 
she  was  able  to  send  them  on  their  way  re- 
joicing their  conduct  and  language  were  so 
extravagant  that  they  appalled  her  more  than 
did  any  other  of  the  numerous  seekers  for 
grace  and  rest. 

The  dead  were  not  the  only  ones  to  whom 
she  ministered.  Side  by  side  with  the  gift 
of  ghost-seeing  and  ghost-conversing,  and  with 
the  no  less  remarkable  gift  of  speaking  in  an 
unknown  tongue  and  of  setting  forth  the 
mysteries  of  the  hereafter,  she  developed  the 
peculiar  faculty  of  peering  into  the  innermost 
being  of  spirits  still  in  the  flesh,  detecting  the 
obscure  causes  of  disease,  and  prescribing 
remedies.  Strange  to  say,  her  own  health 
remained  poor,  and  gradually  she  became  so 
feeble  that  from  day  to  day  her  death  seemed 
imminent.  But  her  parents  were  resolved 
to  do  all  they  could  for  her,  and  at  last  be- 
thought themselves  of  placing  her  in  the  hands 
of  the  much  talked  of  physician,  Justinus 
Kerner,  who  lived  in  the  pleasant  valley  town 
of  Weinsberg  and  was  said  to  be  an  adept  in 
every  branch  of  the  healing  art,  notably  in  the 
mesmerism  which  alone  appeared  to  benefit 


The  Seeress  of  Prevorst  131 

her.  To  Kerner,  therefore,  she  was  sent; 
and  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the  delight 
with  which  she  exchanged  the  gloomy  moun- 
tain forests  for  the  verdant  meadows  and 
fragrant  vineyards  of  Weinsberg. 

Kerner,  who  is  better  known  to  the  present 
generation  as  mystic  and  poet  than  as  physi- 
cian, was  justly  accounted  one  of  the  celebri- 
ties of  the  day.  Eccentric  and  visionary,  he 
was  yet  a  man  of  solid  learning  and  an  intense 
patriot.  It  was  owing  to  him,  as  his  biogra- 
phers fondly  recall,  that  Weinsberg's  most 
glorious  monument,  the  well  named  Weiber- 
trube,  was  not  suffered  to  fall  into  utter 
neglect,  but  was  instead  restored  to  remind 
all  Germans  of  that  distant  day,  in  the  long 
gone  twelfth  century,  when  the  women  of 
Weinsberg,  securing  from  the  conqueror  the 
promise  that  their  lives  would  be  spared,  and 
that  they  might  take  with  them  from  the 
doomed  city  their  most  precious  belongings, 
staggered  forth  under  the  burden  not  of 
jewels  and  treasure  but  of  their  husbands, 
whom  they  carried  in  their  arms  or  on  their 
backs.  Thus  was  a  massacre  averted,  and 
thus  did  the  name  of  "Woman's  Faithfulness" 
attach  itself  to  the  castle  in  the  shadow  of 


132     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

which  Kerner  spent  his  days.  But  at  the  time 
of  which  we  write  neither  the  castle  nor  poetry 
held  first  place  in  his  thoughts;  instead,  he 
was  absorbed  in  the  practice  of  his  profession. 
And  so,  with  the  ardor  of  the  enthusiast  and 
the  sympathy  of  the  true  physician,  he  wel- 
comed to  Weinsberg  the  sufferer  of  whom 
he  had  heard  much  and  of  whom  he  was  to 
become  both  doctor  and  biographer.* 

It  was  in  November,  1826,  that  he  first  met 
her.  She  was  then  twenty-five,  and  thus  had 
been  for  six  years  in  a  state  of  almost  constant 
ill  health.  Her  very  appearance  moved  him 
profoundly.  Her  fragile  body,  he  relates  in 
the  graphic  word  picture  he  drew,  enveloped 
her  spirit  but  as  a  gauzy  veil.  She  was 
extremely  small,  with  Oriental  features  and 
dark-lashed  eyes  that  were  at  once  penetra- 
ting and  "prophetic."  When  she  spoke  his 
conviction  deepened  that  he  was  looking  on 
one  who  belonged  more  to  the  world  of  the 
dead  than  to  the  world  of  the  living;  and  he 
speedily  became  persuaded  that  she  actually 

*  Kerner's  account  of  Frederica  Hauffe  is  found  in  his  "Die  Seherin 
von  Prevorst,"  accessible  in  an  English  translation  by  Mrs.Catharine 
Crowe.  Students  of  the  supernatural,  it  may  be  added,  will  find  a 
great  deal  of  interesting  material  in  Mrs.  Crowe's  "The  Night  Side 
of  Nature." 


The  Seeress  of  Prevorst  133 

did,  as  she  claimed,  commune  with  the 
dead. 

Less  than  a  month  after  her  arrival  at  Weins- 
berg,  and  being  in  the  trance  condition  that 
was  now  frequent  with  her,  she  announced  to 
him  that  she  had  been  visited  by  a  ghost, 
which  insisted  on  showing  her  a  sheet  of  paper 
covered  with  figures  and  begged  her  to  give 
it  to  his  wife,  who  was  still  alive  and  would 
understand  its  significance  and  the  duty  de- 
volving upon  her  of  making  restitution  to  the 
man  he  had  wronged  in  life. 

Kerner  was  thunderstruck  at  recognizing 
from  her  description  a  Weinsberg  lawyer  who 
had  been  dead  for  some  years  and  was  thought 
to  have  defrauded  a  client  out  of  a  large  sum 
of  money.  Eagerly  he  plied  Frederica  with 
questions,  among  other  things  asking  her  to 
endeavor  to  locate  the  paper  of  which  the 
ghost  spoke. 

"I  see  it,"  said  she,  dreamily.  "It  lies  in  a 
building  which  is  sixty  paces  from  my  bed. 
In  this  I  see  a  large  and  a  smaller  room.  In 
the  latter  sits  a  tall  gentleman,  who  is  work- 
ing at  a  table.  Now  he  goes  out,  and  now  he 
returns.  Beyond  these  rooms  there  is  one 
still  larger,  in  which  are  some  chests  and  a 


134     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

long  table.  On  the  table  is  a  wooden  thing 
—  I  cannot  name  it  —  and  on  this  lie  three 
heaps  of  paper;  and  in  the  center  one,  about 
the  middle  of  the  heap,  lies  the  sheet  which 
so  torments  him." 

Knowing  that  this  was  an  exact  account  of 
the  office  of  the  local  bailiff,  Kerner  hastened 
to  that  functionary  with  the  astonishing  news, 
and  was  still  more  astonished  when  the  bailiff 
told  him  that  he  had  been  occupied  precisely 
as  she  said.  Together  they  searched  among 
the  papers  on  the  table;  but  could  find  none 
in  the  lawyer's  handwriting.  Frederica,  how- 
ever, was  insistent,  adding  that  one  corner  of 
the  paper  in  question  was  turned  down  and 
that  it  was  enclosed  in  a  stout  brown  envelope. 
A  second  search  proved  that  she  was  right,  and 
on  opening  the  paper  it  was  found  to  contain 
not  only  figures  but  an  explicit  reference  to  a 
private  account  book  of  which  the  lawyer's 
widow  had  denied  all  knowledge.  Still  more 
striking  was  the  fact,  according  to  Kerner 's 
narrative,  that  when  the  bailiff,  as  a  test,  placed 
the  paper  in  a  certain  position  on  his  desk  and 
went  to  Frederica,  pretending  that  he  had  it 
with  him,  she  correctly  informed  him  where  it 
was  and  read  it  off  to  him  word  by  word. 


The  Seer  ess  of  Prevorst  135 

Although  the  sequel  was  rather  unsatis- 
factory, inasmuch  as  the  widow  persisted  in 
asserting  that  she  knew  nothing  of  a  private 
account  book  and  refused  to  yield  a  penny 
to  the  injured  client,  Kerner  was  so  impressed 
by  this  exhibition  of  supernatural  power  that, 
in  order  to  study  his  patient  more  closely,  he 
had  her  removed  from  her  lodgings  to  his  own 
house.  Thither  also,  as  soon  as  he  learned  that 
their  presence  seemed  to  increase  her  suscepti- 
bility to  the  occult  influences  by  which  she 
was  surrounded,  he  brought  her  sister  and  the 
maid  servant  of  the  dancing  candle  episode. 

Then  ensued  greater  marvels  than  had  ever 
bewitched  the  family  at  Oberstenfeld.  In- 
visible hands  threw  articles  of  furniture  at 
the  enthusiastic  doctor  and  his  friends ;  ghostly 
fingers  sprinkled  lime  and  gravel  on  the  floor- 
ing of  his  halls  and  rooms;  spirit  knuckles 
beat  lively  tattoos  on  walls,  tables,  chairs,  and 
bedsteads.  And  all  the  wThile  ghosts  with 
criminal  pasts  flocked  in  and  out,  seeking  con- 
solation and  advice.  Only  once  or  twice, 
however,  did  the  physician  himself  see  any- 
thing even  remotely  resembling  a  ghost.  On 
one  occasion  a  cloudy  shape  floated  past  his 
window;  and  on  another  he  saw  at  Frederica's 


136    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

bedside  a  pillar  of  vapor,  which  she  afterward 
told  him  was  the  specter  of  a  tall  old  man  who 
had  visited  her  twice  before. 

But  if  he  neither  saw  the  ghosts  nor  heard 
them  speak,  it  was  sufficiently  demonstrated 
to  him  that  they  were  really  in  evidence.  The 
knocking,  furniture  throwing,  and  gravel 
sprinkling  were  the  least  of  the  wonders  of 
which  it  was  permitted  him  to  be  a  witness. 
Once,  when  Frederica  was  taking  an  after- 
noon nap,  a  spirit  that  was  evidently  solicitous 
for  her  comfort  drew  off  her  boots,  and  in  his 
presence  carried  them  across  the  room  to 
where  her  sister  was  standing  by  a  window. 
Again  at  midnight,  after  a  preliminary  knock- 
ing on  the  walls,  he  observed  another  spirit, 
or  possibly  the  same,  open  a  book  she  had 
been  reading  which  was  lying  on  her  bed. 

Most  marvelous  of  all,  when  her  father  died 
she  herself  enacted  the  role  of  ghost,  the  news 
of  his  death  being  conveyed  to  her  super- 
naturally  and  her  cry  of  anguish  being  super- 
naturally  conveyed  back  to  the  room  where 
his  corpse  lay,  in  Oberstenfeld,  and  where  it 
was  distinctly  heard  by  the  physician  who 
had  attended  him  in  his  last  moments.  After 
this  crowning  piece  of  testimony  the  good 


The  Seeress  of  Prevorst  137 

Kerner  felt  that  no  doubt  of  her  unheard  of 
powers  could  remain  in  the  most  skeptical 
mind. 

Judge,  then,  of  his  dismay  and  grief  when 
he  saw  her  visibly  fading  away,  daily  growing 
more  ethereal  of  form  and  feature,  more  weak 
in  body  and  spirit.  It  was  his  belief  that  the 
ghosts  were  robbing  her  of  her  vitality,  and 
earnestly  but  vainly  he  strove  to  banish  them. 
She  herself  declared,  with  a  tone  of  inde- 
scribable relief,  that  she  knew  the  end  was 
near,  and  that  she  welcomed  it,  as  she  longed 
to  attain  the  quiet  of  the  grave  with  her  father 
and  Grandfather  and  Grandmother  Schmid- 
gall.  When  Kerner  sought  to  cheer  her  by 
the  assurance  that  she  yet  had  many  years  to 
live,  she  silenced  him  with  the  tale  of  a  grue- 
some vision.  Three  times,  she  said,  there  had 
appeared  to  her  at  dead  of  night  a  female 
figure,  wrapped  in  black  and  standing  beside 
an  open  and  empty  coffin,  to  which  it  beckoned 
her.  But  before  she  died  she  wished  to  see 
again  the  mountains  of  her  childhood;  and  to 
the  mountains  Kerner  carried  her.  There, 
on  August  5,  1829,  peacefully  and  happily, 
to  the  singing  of  hymns  and  the  sobbing 
utterance  of  prayers,  her  soul  took  its  flight. 


138    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

But,  unlike  Kerner,  who  hastened  back  to 
Weinsberg  to  write  the  biography  of  this 
"delicate  flower  who  lived  upon  sunbeams," 
we  must  shake  off  the  spell  of  her  strange  per- 
sonality and  ask  seriously  what  manner  of 
mortal  she  was.  This  inquiry  is  the  more 
imperative  since  the  doings  of  the  tambourine 
players  and  automatic  writers,  of  whom  so 
much  is  made  in  certain  quarters  to-day,  pale 
into  insignificance  beside  the  story  of  her 
remarkable  career. 

Now,  in  point  of  fact,  the  evidence  bearing 
out  the  claim  that  she  saw  and  talked  with  the 
dead  is  practically  confined  to  the  account 
written  by  the  mourning  Kerner,  whom  no 
one  would  for  a  moment  call  an  unprejudiced 
witness.  Already  deeply  immersed  in  the 
study  of  the  marvelous,  his  mind  absorbed  in 
the  weird  phenomena  of  the  recently  dis- 
covered science  of  animal  magnetism,  she 
came  to  him  both  as  a  patient  and  as  a  living 
embodiment  of  the  mysteries  that  held  for 
him  a  boundless  fascination,  and  once  he 
found  reason  to  believe  in  her  alleged  super- 
normal powers,  there  was  nothing  too  fantastic 
or  extravagant  to  which  he  would  not  give 
ready  credence  and  assent. 


The  Seeress  of  Prevorst  139 

His  lengthy  record  of  "facts"  includes  not 
only  what  he  himself  saw  or  thought  he  saw, 
but  every  tale  and  anecdote  related  to  him  by 
the  seeress  and  her  friends,  and  also  includes 
so  many  incidents  of  supernaturalism  on  the 
part  of  others  that  it  would  well  seem  that 
half  the  peasant  population  of  Wiirtemberg 
were  ghost  seers.  Besides  this,  detailed  as  his 
narrative  is,  it  is  lacking  in  precisely  those 
details  which  would  give  it  evidential  value; 
so  lacking,  indeed,  that  even  such  a  spiritistic 
advocate  as  the  late  F.  W.  H.  Myers  pro- 
nounced it  "quite  inadequate"  for  citation  in 
support  of  the  spiritistic  theory. 

Nevertheless,  taking  his  extraordinary  docu- 
ment for  what  it  is  worth,  careful  considera- 
tion of  it  leads  to  the  conclusion  that  it 
contains  the  story  not  so  much  of  a  great  fraud 
as  of  a  great  tragedy.  It  is  obvious  that  there 
was  frequent  and  barefaced  trickery,  par- 
ticularly on  the  part  of  Frederica's  sister  and 
the  ubiquitous  servant  girl;  but  it  is  equally 
certain  that  Frederica  herself  was  a  wholly 
abnormal  creature,  firmly  self-deluded,  one 
might  say  self -hypnotized,  into  the  belief 
that  the  dead  consorted  with  her.  And  it 
is  hardly  less  certain  that  in  her  singular 


140     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

state  of  body  and  mind  she  gave  evidence  not 
indeed  of  supernatural  but  of  telepathic  and 
clairvoyant  powers  on  which  she  and  those 
about  her,  in  that  unenlightened  age,  could 
not  but  put  a  supernatural  interpretation. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  trace  the  origin  of  the 
nervous  and  mental  disease  from  which  she 
suffered.  Kerner's  account  of  her  childhood 
shows  plainly  that  she  was  born  tempera- 
mentally imaginative  and  unstable  and  that 
she  was  raised  in  an  environment  well  calcu- 
lated to  exaggerate  her  imaginativeness  and 
instability.  Ghosts  and  goblins  were  favorite 
topics  of  conversation  among  the  peasantry 
of  Prevorst,  while  the  children  with  whom  she 
played  were  many  of  them  unstable  like  her- 
self, neurotic,  hysterical,  and  the  victims  of 
St.  Vitus's  dance.  The  weird  and  uneasy 
ideas  and  feelings  which  thus  early  took  pos- 
session of  her  were  given  firmer  lodgment  by 
her  unfortunate  sojourn  with  grave-haunting 
Grandfather  Schmidgall.  After  this,  it  seems, 
she  suffered  for  a  year  from  some  eye  trouble, 
and  every  physician  knows  how  close  the  con- 
nection is  between  optical  disease  and  hallu- 
cinations. Then  came  a  brief  period  of 
seeming  normality,  the  lull  before  the  storm 


The  Seeress  of  Prevorst  141 

which  burst  in  full  force  with  her  marriage  to 
a  man  she  did  not  love.  From  that  time,  the 
helpless  victim  of  hysteria  in  its  most  deep- 
seated  and  obstinate  form,  she  gave  herself 
unreservedly  to  the  delusions  which  both  arose 
from  and  intensified  her  physical  ills  —  ills 
which  after  all  had  a  purely  mental  basis. 
"If  I  doubted  the  reality  of  these  apparitions," 
she  once  told  Kerner,  "I  should  be  in  danger 
of  insanity;  for  it  would  make  me  doubt  the 
reality  of  everything  I  saw." 

It  does  not  affect  this  view  of  the  case  that 
she  unquestionably  cooperated  with  her  con- 
scienceless sister  and  the  servant  girl  in  the 
production  of  the  fraudulent  phenomena  to 
which  Kerner  testifies.  Their  cheating  was 
probably  done  for  the  sole  purpose  of  making 
sure  of  the  comfortable  berth  in  which  the 
physician's  credulity  had  placed  them.  Hers, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  the  deceit  of  an  irre- 
sponsible mind,  of  one  living  in  such  an  at- 
mosphere of  unreality  that  she  could  readily 
persuade  herself  that  the  knockings,  candle 
dancings,  book  openings,  and  similar  acts  were 
the  work  not  of  her  own  hands  but  of  the  ghosts 
which  tormented  her.  Indeed,  researches  of 
recent  years  in  the  field  of  abnormal  psychology 


142    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

show  it  is  quite  possible  that  she  was  absolutely 
ignorant  of  any  personal  participation  in  the 
movements  and  sounds  which  caused  such 
wide-spread  mystification.  Sympathy  and  pity, 
therefore,  should  take  the  place  of  condemna- 
tion when  we  follow  the  course  of  her  eventful 
and  unhappy  life. 


VIII 

THE  MYSTERIOUS  MR.  HOME 

you've  brought  the  devil  to  my  house, 
have  you?" 
"No,  no,  aunty,  no!     It's  not  my  fault." 
With   an   angry  gesture   the   woman,   tall, 
large  boned,  harsh  visaged,  pushed  back  her 
chair  and  advanced  threateningly  toward  the 
pale,  anemic  looking  youth  of  seventeen,  who 
sat  cowering  at  the  far  end  of  the  breakfast 
table. 

"You  know  this  is  your  doing.  Stop  it  at 
once!" 

The  other  gazed  helplessly  about  him,  while 
from  every  side  of  the  room  came  a  volley  of 
raps  and  knocks.  "It  is  not  my  doing,"  he 
muttered.  "I  cannot  help  it." 

"Begone  then!  Out  of  my  sight!" 
Left  to  herself  and  to  silence,  —  for  with 
her  nephew's  departure  the  noise  instantly 
ceased,  —  she  fell  into  gloomy  meditation. 
She  was  an  exceedingly  ignorant,  but  a  pro- 
foundly religious  woman.  She  had  heard 

143 


144     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

much  of  the  celebrated  Fox  sisters,  with  tales 
of  whose  strange  actions  in  the  neighboring 
State  of  New  York  the  countryside  was  then 
ringing,  and  she  recognized,  or  imagined  she 
recognized,  a  striking  similarity  between  their 
performances  and  the  tumult  of  the  last  few 
minutes.  It  was  her  firm  belief  that  the  Fox 
girls  were  victims  of  demoniac  influence,  and 
no  less  surely  did  she  deem  it  impossible  to 
attribute  the  recent  disturbance  to  human 
agency.  Her  nephew  was  not  given  to  prac- 
tical jokes;  there  had  been  nothing  unusual 
in  his  manner;  he  had  greeted  her  cheerily  as 
usual,  and  quietly  taken  his  seat.  But  with 
his  advent,  and  she  shuddered  at  the  remem- 
brance, the  knockings  had  begun.  There 
could  be  only  one  explanation  —  the  boy, 
however  unwittingly,  had  placed  himself  in 
the  power  of  the  devil.  What  to  do,  however, 
she  knew  not,  and  fumed  and  fretted  the  entire 
morning,  until  upon  his  reappearance  at  noon 
the  knockings  broke  out  again.  Then  her 
mind  was  quickly  made  up. 

"Look  you!"  said  she  to  him.  "We  must 
rid  you  of  the  evil  that  is  in  you.  I  will  have 
the  ministers  reason  with  you  and  pray  for 
you,  and  that  at  once." 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          145 

True  to  her  word,  she  despatched  a  mes- 
senger to  the  three  clergymen  of  the  litttle 
Connecticut  village  in  which  she  made  her 
home,  and  all  three  promptly  responded  to  her 
request.  But  their  visits  and  their  prayers 
proved  fruitless.  Indeed,  the  more  they  prayed 
the  louder  the  knocks  became;  and  presently, 
to  their  astonishment  and  dismay,  the  very 
furniture  appeared  bewitched,  dancing  and 
leaping  as  though  alive.  "  Verily,"  said  one 
to  his  irate  aunt,  "the  boy  is  possessed  of  the 
devil."  To  make  matters  worse,  the  neigh- 
bors, hearing  of  the  weird  occurrences, 
besieged  the  house  day  and  night,  their  curi- 
osity whetted  by  a  report  that,  exactly  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Fox  sisters,  communications 
from  the  dead  were  being  received  through 
the  knockings.  Incredible  as  it  seemed,  this 
report  found  speedy  confirmation.  Before  the 
week  was  out  the  lad  told  his  aunt: 

"Last  night  there  came  raps  to  me  spelling 
words,  and  they  brought  me  a  message  from 
the  spirit  of  my  mother." 

"And  what,  pray,  was  the  message?" 

"My  mother's  spirit  said  to  me,  *  Daniel, 
fear  not,  my  child.  God  is  with  you,  and  who 
shall  be  against  you  ?  Seek  to  do  good.  Be 


146     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

truthful  and  truth  loving,  and  you  will  prosper, 
my  child.  Yours  is  a  glorious  mission  —  you 
will  convince  the  infidel,  cure  the  sick,  and 
console  the  weeping.'" 

"A  glorious  mission,"  mocked  the  aunt,  her 
patience  utterly  exhausted,  —  "a  glorious  mis- 
sion to  bedevil  and  deceive,  to  plague  and  tor- 
ment! Away,  away,  and  darken  my  doors  no 
more!" 

"Do  you  mean  this,  aunty?" 

"Mean  it,  Daniel?  Never  shall  it  be  said 
of  me  that  I  gave  aid  and  comfort  to  Satan  or 
child  of  Satan's.  Pack,  and  be  off!" 

In  this  way  was  Daniel  Dunglas  Home 
launched  on  a  career  that  was  to  prove  one  of 
the  most  marvelous,  if  not  the  most  marvelous, 
in  the  annals  of  mystification.  But  at  the 
time  there  was  no  reason  to  anticipate  the  re- 
markable achievements  which  the  future  held 
in  store  for  him.  He  was  fitted  for  no  calling. 
Ever  since  his  aunt  had  adopted  him  in  far- 
away Scotland,  where  he  was  born  of  obscure 
parentage  in  1833,  he  had  led  a  life  of  com- 
plete dependence,  not  altogether  cheerless  but 
deadening  to  initiative  and  handicapping  him 
terribly  for  the  task  of  making  his  way  in  the 
world.  His  health  was  broken,  his  pockets 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          147 

were  empty,  he  was  without  friends.  Cast 
upon  his  own  resources  under  such  conditions, 
it  seemed  but  too  probable  that  failure  and  an 
early  death  would  be  his  portion. 

Two  things  only  were  in  his  favor.  The  first 
was  his  native  determination  and  optimism; 
the  second,  the  interest  aroused  by  published 
reports  of  the  phenomena  that  had  led  to  his 
expulsion  from  his  aunt's  house.  Already, 
although  only  a  few  days  had  elapsed  since 
the  knockings  were  first  heard,  the  newspapers 
had  given  the  story  great  publicity,  and  their 
accounts  were  greedily  devoured  by  an  ever- 
widening  circle  of  readers,  quite  willing  to 
regard  such  happenings  as  evidence  of  the 
intervention  of  the  dead  in  the  affairs  of  the 
living.  It  was,  it  must  be  remembered,  an  era 
of  wide-spread  enthusiasm  and  credulity,  the 
heyday  period  of  spiritism.  So  soon,  there- 
fore, as  it  became  known  that  young  Home  was 
at  liberty  to  go  where  he  would,  invitations 
were  showered  on  him. 

Among  these  was  one  from  the  nearby  town 
of  Willimantic,  and  thither  Home  journeyed 
in  the  early  spring  of  1851.  It  was  determined 
that  an  attempt  should  be  made  to  demon- 
strate his  mediumship  by  the  table  tilting 


148     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

process  then  coming  into  vogue  among  spirit- 
ists, and  the  result  exceeded  all  expectations. 
The  table,  according  to  an  eye-witness  of  the 
first  seance,  not  only  moved  without  physical 
contact,  but  on  request  turned  itself  upside 
down,  and  overcame  a  spectator's  efforts  to 
prevent  its  motion.  True,  when  this  specta- 
tor "grasped  its  leg  and  held  it  with  all  his 
strength"  the  table  "did  not  move  so  freely  as 
before."  Still,  it  moved,  and  Home's  fame 
mounted  apace.  From  town  to  town  he 
traveled,  holding  seances  at  which,  if  con- 
temporary accounts  are  to  be  believed,  he 
gave  exhibitions  of  supernatural  power  far 
and  away  ahead  of  all  other  of  the  numerous 
mediums  who  were  by  this  time  springing  up 
throughout  the  Eastern  States.  On  one  occa- 
sion, we  are  told,  the  spirits  communicated 
through  him  the  whereabouts  of  missing  title 
deeds  to  a  tract  of  land  then  in  litigation;  on 
another,  they  enabled  him  to  prescribe  suc- 
cessfully for  an  invalid  for  whom  no  hope  wTas 
entertained ;  and  time  after  time  they  conveyed 
to  those  in  his  seance  room  messages  of  more 
or  less  vital  import,  besides  vouchsafing  to 
them  "physical"  phenomena  of  the  greatest 
variety. 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          149 

What  was  most  remarkable  was  the  fact 
that  the  young  medium  steadfastly  refused  to 
accept  payment  for  his  services.  "  My  gift,"  he 
would  solemnly  say,  "is  free  to  all,  without 
money  and  without  price.  I  have  a  mission 
to  fulfil,  and  to  its  fulfilment  I  will  cheerfully 
give  my  life."  Naturally  this  attitude  of  itself 
made  for  converts  to  the  spiritistic  beliefs  of 
which  he  was  such  a  successful  exponent,  and 
its  influence  was  powerfully  reinforced  by 
the  result  of  an  investigation  conducted  in  the 
spring  of  1852  by  a  committee  headed  by  the 
poet,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  and  the  Harvard 
professor,  David  G.  Wells.  Briefly,  these 
declared  in  their  report  that  they  had  at- 
tended a  seance  with  Home  in  a  well  lighted 
room,  had  seen  a  table  move  in  every  direc- 
tion and  with  great  force,  "  when  we  could 
not  perceive  any  cause  of  motion,"  and 
even  "rise  clear  of  the  floor  and  float  in 
the  atmosphere  for  several  seconds";  had 
in  vain  tried  to  inhibit  its  action  by  sitting 
on  it;  had  occasionally  been  made  "con- 
scious of  the  occurrence  of  a  powerful  shock, 
which  produced  a  vibratory  motion  of  the 
floor  of  the  apartment  in  which  we  were 
seated";  and  finally  were  absolutely  certain 


150     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

that  they  had  not  been  "imposed  upon  or 
deceived." 

The  report,  to  be  sure,  did  not  specify  what, 
if  any,  means  had  been  taken  to  guard  against 
fraud,  its  only  reference  in  this  connection 
being  a  statement  that  "Mr.  D.  D.  Home  fre- 
quently urged  us  to  hold  his  hands  and  feet." 
But  it  none  the  less  created  a  tremendous  sen- 
sation, public  attention  being  focused  on  the 
fact  that  an  awkward,  callow,  country  lad  had 
successfully  sustained  the  scrutiny  of  men  of 
learning,  intelligence,  and  high  repute.  No 
longer,  it  would  seem,  could  there  be  doubt  of 
the  validity  of  his  claims,  and  greater  demands 
than  ever  were  made  on  him.  As  before,  he 
willingly  responded,  adding  to  his  repertoire, 
if  the  term  be  permissible,  new  feats  of  the 
most  startling  character.  Thus,  at  a  seance 
in  New  York  a  table  on  which  a  pencil,  two 
candles,  a  tumbler,  and  some  papers  had  been 
placed,  tipped  over  at  an  angle  of  thirty  degrees 
without  disturbing  in  the  slightest  the  position 
of  the  movable  objects  on  its  surface.  Then 
at  the  medium's  bidding  the  pencil  was  dis- 
lodged, rolling  to  the  floor,  while  the  rest  re- 
mained motionless ;  and  afterward  the  tumbler. 

A  little  later  occurred  the  first  of  Home's 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          151 

levitations  when  at  the  house  of  a  Mr.  Cheney 
in  South  Manchester,  Connecticut,  he  is  said 
to  have  been  lifted  without  visible  means  of 
support  to  the  ceiling  of  the  seance  room.  To 
quote  from  an  eye- witness's  narrative:  "Sud- 
denly, and  without  any  expectation  on  the  part 
of  the  company,  Mr.  Home  was  taken  up  in 
the  air.  I  had  hold  of  his  feet  at  the  time,  and 
I  and  others  felt  his  feet  —  they  were  lifted 
a  foot  from  the  floor.  .  .  .  Again  and  again  he 
was  taken  from  the  floor,  and  the  third  time 
he  was  carried  to  the  lofty  ceiling  of  the  apart- 
ment, with  which  his  hand  and  head  came  in 
gentle  contact."  A  far  cry,  this,  from  the 
simple  raps  and  knocks  that  had  ushered  in 
his  mediumship. 

Now,  however,  an  event  occurred  that 
threatened  to  cut  short  alike  his  "mission" 
and  his  life.  Never  of  robust  health,  he  fell 
seriously  ill  of  an  affection  that  developed  into 
tuberculosis.  The  medical  men  whom  he  con- 
sulted unanimously  declared  that  his  only  hope 
lay  in  a  change  of  climate,  and,  taking  alarm, 
his  spiritistic  friends  generously  subscribed  a 
large  sum  to  enable  him  to  visit  Europe.  Inci- 
dentally, no  doubt,  they  expected  him  to  serve 
as  a  missionary  of  the  new  faith,  and  it  may  be 


152     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

said  at  once  that  in  this  expectation  they  were 
not  deceived.  No  one  ever  labored  more 
earnestly  and  successfully  in  behalf  of  spirit- 
ism than  did  Daniel  Dunglas  Home  from  the 
moment  he  set  foot  on  the  shores  of  England 
in  April,  1855;  and  no  one  in  all  the  history  of 
spiritism  achieved  such  individual  renown,  not 
in  England  alone  but  in  almost  every  country 
of  the  Continent. 

It  is  from  this  point  that  the  mystery  of  his 
career  really  becomes  conspicuous.  Hitherto, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Bryant- Wells  inves- 
tigation, which  could  hardly  be  called  scientific, 
his  pretensions  had  not  been  seriously  tested, 
and  operating  as  he  did  among  avowed  spirit- 
ists he  had  enjoyed  unlimited  opportunities 
for  the  perpetration  of  fraud.  But  henceforth, 
skeptics  as  well  as  believers  having  ready 
access  to  him,  he  found  himself  not  infre- 
quently in  a  thoroughly  hostile  environment, 
and  subjected  to  the  sharpest  criticism  and 
most  unrestrained  abuse.  Nevertheless,  he 
was  able  not  simply  to  maintain  but  to  aug- 
ment the  fame  of  his  youth,  and  after  a  me- 
diumship  of  more  than  thirty  years,  could 
claim  the  unique  distinction  of  not  once  having 
had  a  charge  of  trickery  proved  against  him. 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          153 

Besides  this,  overcoming  with  astounding 
ease  the  handicaps  of  his  humble  birth  and 
lack  of  education,  his  life  was  one  continued 
round  of  social  triumphs  of  the  highest  order; 
for  he  speedily  won  and  retained  to  the  day  of 
his  death  the  confidence  and  friendship  of 
leaders  of  society  in  every  European  capital. 
With  them,  in  castle,  chateau,  and  mansion, 
he  made  his  home,  always  welcome  and  al- 
ways trusted ;  and  in  his  days  of  greatest  stress, 
days  of  ill  health,  vilification,  and  legal  en- 
tanglements, they  rallied  unfailingly  to  his 
aid.  Add  again  that  Kings  and  Queens  vied 
with  one  another  in  entertaining  and  reward- 
ing him,  and  it  is  possible  to  gain  some  idea 
of  the  heights  scaled  by  this  erstwhile  Con- 
necticut country  boy. 

He  began  modestly  enough  by  taking  rooms 
at  a  quiet  London  hotel,  where,  his  fame  hav- 
ing spread  through  the  city,  he  soon  had  the 
pleasure  of  giving  a  seance  to  two  such  dis- 
tinguished personages  as  Lord  Brougham  and 
Sir  David  Brewster.  Both  retired  thoroughly 
mystified,  though  the  latter  some  months  later 
asserted  that  while  he  "could  not  account  for 
all"  he  had  witnessed,  he  had  seen  enough  to 
satisfy  himself  "that  they  could  all  be  pro- 


154     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

duced  by  hands  and  feet,"  —  a  statement 
which,  by  the  way,  was  at  variance  from  one 
he  had  made  at  the  time,  and  involved  him  in 
a  most  unpleasant  controversy.  After  Broug- 
ham and  Brewster  came  a  long  succession  of 
other  notables,  including  the  novelist  Sir  Bul- 
wer  Lytton,  to  whom  a  most  edifying  experi- 
ence was  granted.  Rapping  away  as  usual, 
the  table  suddenly  indicated  that  it  had  a  mes- 
sage for  him,  and  the  alphabet  being  called 
over  in  the  customary  spiritistic  style,  it  spelled 
out: 

"I  am  the  spirit  who  influenced  you  to  write 
Zanoni." 

"Indeed!**  quoth  Lytton,  with  a  skeptical 
smile.  "  Suppose  you  give  me  a  tangible  proof 
of  your  presence?" 

"Put  your  hand  under  the  table." 

No  sooner  done,  than  the  invisible  being 
gave  him  a  hearty  handshake,  and  proceeded : 

"We  wish  you  to  believe  in  the — "  It 
stopped. 

"In  what?  In  the  medium?" 

"No." 

At  that  moment  there  came  a  gentle  tapping 
on  his  knee,  and  looking  down  he  found  on  it 
a  small  cardboard  cross  that  had  been  lying 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          155 

on  another  table.  Lytton,  the  story  goes, 
begged  permission  to  keep  the  cross  as  a 
souvenir,  and  promised  that  he  would  remem- 
ber the  spirit's  injunction.  For  Home,  of 
course,  the  incident  was  a  splendid  advertise- 
ment, as  were  the  extravagant  reports  spread 
broadcast  by  other  visitors.  Consequently, 
when  he  visited  Italy  in  the  autumn  as  the  guest 
of  one  of  his  English  patrons,  he  gained  in- 
stant recognition  and  was  enabled  to  embark 
with  phenomenal  ease  on  his  Continental 
crusade. 

In  order  to  reach  the  most  striking  mani- 
festations of  his  peculiar  ability,  we  must 
pass  hurriedly  over  the  events  of  the  next  few 
years,  although  they  are  perhaps  the  most 
picturesque  of  his  career,  including  as  they 
do  seances  with  the  third  Napoleon  and  his 
Empress,  with  the  King  of  Prussia,  and  with 
the  Emperor  of  Russia.  In  Russia  he  was 
married  to  the  daughter  of  a  noble  Russian 
family,  and  for  groomsmen  at  his  wedding  had 
Count  Alexis  Tolstoi,  the  famous  poet,  and 
Count  Bobrinski,  one  of  the  Emperor's  cham- 
berlains. This  was  in  1858,  and  shortly  after- 
ward he  returned  to  England  to  repeat  his 
spiritistic  triumphs  of  1855,  and  increase  the 


156     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

already  large  group  of  influential  and  titled 
friends  whose  doors  were  ever  open  to  him. 
Had  it  not  been  for  their  generosity,  it  is  diffi- 
cult, indeed,  to  see  how  he  could  have  lived, 
for  his  time  was  almost  altogether  devoted 
to  the  practice  of  spiritism,  and  he  was  never 
known  to  accept  a  fee  for  a  seance.  As  it  was, 
he  lived  very  well,  now  the  guest  of  one,  now 
of  another,  and  the  frequent  recipient  of  costly 
presents.  From  England  he  fared  back  to 
the  Continent,  again  traversing  it  by  leisurely 
stages.  Thus  nearly  a  decade  passed  before 
the  occurrence  of  the  first  of  the  several  phe- 
nomena that  have  won  Home  an  enduring 
place  among  the  greatest  lights  of  spiritism. 

At  that  time  his  English  patrons  included 
the  Viscount  Adare  and  the  Master  of  Lind- 
say, who  have  since  become  respectively  the 
Earl  of  Dunraven  and  the  Earl  of  Crawford. 
They  were  sitting  one  evening  (December  16, 
1868)  in  an  upper  room  of  a  house  in  London 
with  Home  and  a  Captain  Wynne,  when  Home 
suddenly  left  the  room  and  entered  the  adjoin- 
ing chamber.  The  opening  of  a  window  was 
then  heard,  and  the  next  moment,  to  the  amaze- 
ment of  all  three,  they  perceived  Home's  form 
floating  in  the  dim  moonlight  outside  the  win- 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          157 

dow  of  the  room  in  which  they  were  seated. 
For  an  instant  it  hovered  there,  at  a  height 
of  fully  seventy  feet  above  the  pavement,  and 
then,  smiling  and  debonnair,  Home  was  with 
them  again.  Another  marvel  immediately  fol- 
lowed. At  Home's  request  Lord  Dunraven 
closed  the  window  out  of  which  the  medium 
was  supposed  to  have  been  carried  by  the 
spirits,  and  on  returning  observed  that  the 
window  had  not  been  raised  a  foot,  and  he 
did  not  see  how  a  man  could  have  squeezed 
through  it.  " Come,"  said  Home,  "I  will  show 
you."  Together  they  went  into  the  next  room. 

"He  told  me,"  Lord  Dunraven  reported, 
"to  open  the  window  as  it  was  before.  I  did 
so.  He  told  me  to  stand  a  little  distance  off; 
he  then  went  through  the  open  space,  head 
first,  quite  rapidly,  his  body  being  nearly 
horizontal  and  apparently  rigid.  He  came  in 
again  feet  foremost,  and  we  returned  to  the 
other  room.  It  was  so  dark  I  could  not  see 
clearly  how  he  was  supported  oustide.  He 
did  not  appear  to  grasp,  or  rest  upon  the  balus- 
trade, but  rather  to  be  swung  out  and  in." 

To  Lord  Dunraven  and  Lord  Crawford 
again  was  given  the  boon  of  witnessing  an- 
other of  Home's  most  sensational  perform- 


158     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

ances,  and  on  more  than  one  occasion.  This 
may  best  be  described  in  Lord  Crawford's 
own  words,  as  related  in  his  testimony  to  the 
London  Dialectical  Society's  committee  which 
in  1869  undertook  an  inquiry  into  the  claims 
of  spiritism. 

"I  saw  Mr.  Home,"  declared  Lord  Craw- 
ford, "in  a  trance  elongated  eleven  inches.  I 
measured  him  standing  up  against  the  wall, 
and  marked  the  place;  not  being  satisfied  with 
that,  I  put  him  in  the  middle  of  the  room  and 
placed  a  candle  in  front  of  him,  so  as  to  throw 
a  shadow  on  the  wall,  which  I  also  marked. 
When  he  awoke  I  measured  him  again  in  his 
natural  size,  both  directly  and  by  the  shadow, 
and  the  results  were  equal.  I  can  swear  that 
he  was  not  off  the  ground  or  standing  on  tiptoe, 
as  I  had  full  view  of  his  feet,  and,  moreover,  a 
gentleman  present  had  one  of  his  feet  placed 
over  Home's  insteps.  ...  I  once  saw  him 
elongated  horizontally  on  the  ground.  Lord 
Adare  was  present.  Home  seemed  to  grow 
at  both  ends,  and  pushed  myself  and  Adare 
away." 

The  publication  of  this  evidence  and  of  the 
details  of  the  mid-air  excursion  provoked,  as 
may  be  imagined,  a  heated  discussion,  and 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          159 

doubtless  had  considerable  influence  in  induc- 
ing the  famous  scientist,  Sir  William  Crookes, 
to  engage  in  the  series  of  experiments  which  he 
carried  out  with  Home  two  years  later.  This 
was  at  once  the  most  searching  investigation 
to  which  Home  was  ever  subjected,  and  the 
most  signal  triumph  of  his  career.  Sir  Wil- 
liam's proposal  was  hailed  with  the  greatest 
satisfaction  by  the  critics  of  spiritism  in  gen- 
eral and  of  Home  in  particular.  Here,  it  was 
said,  was  a  man  fully  qualified  to  expose  the 
archimpostor  who  had  been  so  justly  pilloried 
in  Browning's  "Mr.  Sludge  the  Medium"; 
here  was  a  scientist,  trained  to  exact  knowl- 
edge and  close  observation,  who  would  not  be 
deceived  by  the  artful  tricks  of  a  conjurer. 
It  was  pleasant  too  to  learn  that  in  order  to 
circumvent  any  attempts  at  sleight  of  hand, 
Sir  William  intended  using  instruments  spe- 
cially designed  for  test  purposes,  and  which  he 
was  confident  could  not  be  operated  fraudu- 
lently. 

But  Home,  or  the  spirits  proved  too  strong 
for  even  Sir  William  Crookes  and  his  instru- 
ments. In  Sir  William's  presence,  in  fact, 
there  was  a  multiplication  of  mysteries.  The 
instruments  registered  results  which  seemed 


160     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

inexplicable  by  any  natural  law;  a  lath,  cast 
carelessly  on  a  table,  rose  in  the  air,  nodded 
gravely  to  the  astonished  scientist,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  tap  out  messages  alleged  to  come 
from  the  world  beyond;  chairs  moved  in 
ghostly  fashion  up  and  down  the  room;  in- 
visible beings  lifted  Home  himself  from  the 
floor;  spirit  hands  were  seen  and  felt;  an  ac- 
cordeon,  held  by  Sir  William,  played  tunes 
apparently  of  its  own  volition,  and  afterward 
floated  about  the  room,  still  playing.  And 
all  this,  according  to  the  learned  investigator, 
"in  a  private  room  that  almost  up  to  the  com- 
mencement of  the  seance  has  been  occupied 
as  a  living  room,  and  surrounded  by  private 
friends  of  my  own,  who  not  only  will  not 
countenance  the  slightest  deception,  but  who 
are  watching  narrowly  everything  that  takes 
place." 

In  the  end,  so  far  from  announcing  that  he 
had  convicted  Home  of  fraud,  Sir  William 
published  an  elaborate  account  of  his  seances, 
and  gave  it  as  his  solemn  belief  that  with 
Home's  assistance  he  had  succeeded  in  demon- 
strating the  existence  of  a  hitherto  unknown 
force.  This  was  scarcely  what  had  been  ex- 
pected by  the  scientific  world,  which  had 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          161 

eagerly  awaited  his  verdict,  and  loud  was  the 
tumult  that  followed.  But  Sir  William  stood 
manfully  by  his  guns,  and  Home  —  bland,  in- 
scrutable, mysterious  Home  —  figuratively 
shrugging  his  shoulders  at  denunciations  to 
which  he  had  by  this  time  become  perfectly 
accustomed,  added  another  leaf  to  his  spiritis- 
tic crown  of  laurels,  and  betook  himself  anew 
to  his  friends  on  the  Continent,  where,  despite 
increasing  ill  health,  he  continued  to  prose- 
cute his  "mission"  for  many  prosperous 
years. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  throughout  the  period  of 
his  mediumship,  that  is  to  say,  from  1851  to 
1886,  the  year  of  his  death,  he  experienced 
only  one  serious  reverse,  and  this  did  not 
involve  any  exposure  of  the  falsity  of  his 
claims.  But  it  was  serious  enough,  in  all  con- 
science, and  calls  for  mention  both  because  it 
emphasizes  the  contrast  between  his  earlier 
and  his  later  life,  and  because  it  throws  a 
luminous  sidelight  on  the  methods  by  which 
he  achieved  his  unparalleled  success.  When 
he  was  in  London  in  1867  he  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  an  elderly,  impressionable  Eng- 
lish-woman named  Lyon,  who  immediately 
conceived  a  warm  attachment  for  him  and 


16£    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

stated  her  intention  of  adopting  him  as  her 
son.  Carrying  out  this  plan,  she  settled  on 
him  the  snug  little  fortune  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty  thousand  dollars,  which  she  subse- 
quently increased  until  it  amounted  to  no  less 
than  three  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Home 
at  the  time  was  a  widower,  and  it  was  his  belief, 
as  he  afterward  stated  in  court,  that  the  woman 
desired  him  to  marry  her. 

In  any  event  her  affection  cooled  as  rapidly 
as  it  had  begun,  and  the  next  thing  he  knew 
he  was  being  sued  for  the  recovery  of  the  three 
hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  trial  was  a 
celebrated  case  in  English  law.  Lord  Dun- 
raven,  Lord  Crawford,  and  other  of  Home's 
titled  and  influential  friends  hurried  to  his 
assistance,  and  many  were  the  affidavits  forth- 
coming to  combat  the  contentions  of  Mrs. 
Lyon,  who  swore  that  she  had  been  influenced 
to  adopt  Home  by  communications  alleged  to 
come  through  him  from  her  dead  husband. 
Home  himself  denied  that  there  were  any 
manifestations  whatever  relating  to  Mrs.  Lyon, 
whose  story,  in  fact,  was  so  discredited  on 
cross-examination  that  the  presiding  judge, 
the  vice-chancellor,  caustically  declared  that 
her  testimony  was  quite  unworthy  of  belief. 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          163 

Notwithstanding  which,  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  give  judgment  in  her  favor,  on  the  ground 
that,  however  worthless  her  evidence,  it  had 
not  been  satisfactorily  shown  that  her  gifts 
to  Home  were  "acts  of  pure  volition,"  the 
presumption  being  that  no  reasonable  man 
or  woman  would  have  pursued  the  course  she 
did  unless  under  the  pressure  of  undue  influ- 
ence by  the  party  to  be  benefited. 

If  for  "undue  influence"  we  read  "hyp- 
notism," we  shall  have  a  sufficient,  and  what 
seems  to  me  the  only  satisfactory,  explana- 
tion of  the  Lyon  episode  and  of  the  most 
baffling  of  Home's  feats,  his  levitations,  elon- 
gations, and  the  like.  For  the  rest,  bearing  in 
mind  the  fate  of  other  dealers  in  turning  tables 
and  dancing  chairs,  he  may  fairly  be  regarded 
in  the  light  Browning  regarded  him,  that  is 
to  say  as  an  exceptionally  able  conjurer  who 
enjoyed  the  singular  good  fortune  of  never 
being  found  out.*  It  must  be  remembered 
that  not  once  was  there  applied  to  him  the 
test  which  is  now  recognized  as  absolutely 
indispensable  in  the  investigation  of  mediums 

*  But  a  "conjurer  "  who  in  all  probability  should  not  be  held 
to  strict  account  for  his  deceptions.  On  this  point,  see  below. 


164     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

who,  like  Home,  are  specialists  in  the  produc- 
tion of  " physical"  phenomena.  This  test  is 
the  demand  that  the  phenomena  in  question 
be  produced  under  conditions  doing  away 
with  the  necessity  for  constant  observation  of 
the  medium  himself. 

Even  Sir  William  Crookes,  who  appreciated 
to  the  full  the  extreme  fallibility  of  the  human 
eye  and  the  ease  with  which  the  most  careful 
observer  may  be  deceived  by  a  clever  pres- 
tidigitator, failed  to  apply  this  test  to  Home; 
and  by  so  failing  laid  himself  open  on  the  one 
hand  to  deception  and  on  the  other  to  the  flood 
of  criticism  let  loose  by  his  scientific  colleagues. 
Thus,  the  apparatus  used  in  the  experiment 
on  which  he  seems  to  have  laid  greatest  stress, 
is  described  as  follows : 

"In  another  part  of  the  room  an  apparatus 
was  fitted  up  for  experimenting  on  the  altera- 
tions in  the  weight  of  a  body.  It  consisted  of 
a  mahogany  board  thirty-six  inches  long  by 
nine  and  one-half  inches  wide  and  one  inch 
thick.  At  each  end  a  strip  of  mahogany  one 
and  one-half  inches  wide  was  screwed  on, 
forming  feet.  One  end  of  the  board  rested 
on  a  firm  table,  whilst  the  other  end  was  sup- 
ported by  a  spring  balance  hanging  from  a 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          165 

substantial  tripod  stand.  The  balance  was 
fitted  with  a  self-registering  index,  in  such 
a  manner  that  it  would  record  the  maximum 
weight  indicated  by  the  pointer.  The  appara- 
tus was  adjusted  so  that  the  mahogany  board 
was  horizontal,  its  foot  resting  flat  on  the  sup- 
port. In  this  position  its  weight  was  three 
pounds,  as  marked  by  the  pointer  of  the  bal- 
ance. Before  Mr.  Home  entered  the  room 
the  apparatus  had  been  arranged  in  position, 
and  he  had  not  seen  the  object  of  some  parts 
explained  before  sitting  down." 

Now,  to  give  this  "test"  evidential  value, 
the  disembodied  spirit  supposed  to  be  acting 
through  Home  should  have  caused  the  register- 
ing index  to  record  a  change  in  weight  without 
necessitating,  on  the  spectators'  part,  con- 
stant scrutiny  of  the  medium's  movements. 
But,  in  point  of  fact,  a  change  in  weight  was 
recorded  only  when  Home  placed  his  fingers 
on  the  mahogany  board.  It  is  true,  that  he 
placed  them  on  the  end  furthest  from  the 
balance,  and  the  evidence  seems  sufficient  that 
he  did  not  cause  the  pointer  to  move  by  exert- 
ing a  downward  pressure.  But  as  one  critic, 
Mr.  Frank  Podmore,  has  suggested  there  is 
no  proof  that  he  did  not  find  opportunity  to 


166    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

tamper  with  the  pointer  itself  or  with  some 
other  part  of  the  apparatus  by  attaching  there- 
to a  looped  thread  or  hair.  To  quote  Mr. 
Podmore : 

"It  is  by  the  use  of  such  a  thread,  I  venture 
to  suggest,  that  the  watchful  observation  of 
Mr.  Crookes  and  his  colleagues  was  evaded. 
Given  a  subdued  light  and  opportunity  to 
move  about  the  room  —  and  from  detailed 
notes  of  later  seances  it  seems  probable  that 
Home  could  do  as  he  liked  in  both  respects  — 
the  loop  could  be  attached  without  much  risk 
of  detection  to  some  part  of  the  apparatus, 
preferably  the  hook  from  which  the  distal 
end  of  the  board  was  suspended,  the  ends  [of 
the  thread]  being  fastened  to  some  part  of 
Home's  dress,  e.g.,  the  knees  of  his  trousers, 
if  his  feet  and  hands  were  under  effectual 
observation."  * 

Moreover,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that, 
barring  the  Crookes  investigation,  Home's 
manifestations  for  the  most  part  occurred  in 
the  presence  of  men  and  women  who,  if  not 
spiritists  themselves,  had  implicit  confidence 
in  his  good  faith  and  could  by  no  stretch  of  the 
imagination  be  called  trained  investigators. 

*  "  Modern  Spiritualism,"  Vol.  U,  p.  242. 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          167 

Indeed,  it  seems  safe  to  say  that  had  present 
day  methods  of  inquiry  been  employed,  as 
they  are  employed  by  the  experts  of  the  So- 
ciety for  Psychical  Research,  Home,  so  far  at 
any  rate  as  concerned  the  great  bulk  of  his 
phenomena,  would  quickly  have  been  placed 
in  the  same  gallery  as  Madam  Blavatsky, 
Eusapia  Paladino,  and  those  other  wonder 
workers  whom  the  society  has  discredited. 

In  the  matter  of  the  levitations  and  elonga- 
tions, however,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  raise  the 
cry  of  sheer  fraud.  Here  the  only  rational 
explanation,  short  of  supposing  that  Home 
availed  himself  if  not  of  the  aid  of  "spirits" 
at  least  of  the  aid  of  some  unknown  physical 
force,  seems  to  be,  as  was  said,  the  exercise 
of  hypnotic  power.  The  accounts  given  by 
Lord  Dunraven,  Lord  Crawford,  and  Sir  Will- 
iam Crookes  show  that  he  had  ample  scope 
for  the  employment  of  suggestion  as  a  means 
of  inducing  those  about  him  to  imagine  they 
had  seen  things  which  they  actually  had  not 
seen.  In  this  connection,  it  seems  to  me,  con- 
siderable significance  attaches  to  the  following 
bit  of  evidence  contributed  by  Lord  Crawford 
with  regard  to  the  London  levitation: 

"  I  saw  the  levitations  in  Victoria  Street  when 


168     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

Home  floated  out  of  the  window.  He  first 
went  into  a  trance  and  walked  about  uneasily; 
he  then  went  into  the  hall.  While  he  was 
away  I  heard  a  voice  whisper  in  my  ear  'He 
will  go  out  of  one  window  and  in  at  another.' 
I  was  alarmed  and  shocked  at  the  idea  of  so 
dangerous  an  experiment.  I  told  the  com- 
pany what  I  had  heard  and  we  then  waited 
for  Home's  return." 

After  it  is  stated  that  Lord  Crawford,  not 
long  before,  had  fancied  he  beheld  an  appa- 
rition of  a  man  seated  in  a  chair,  it  is  easy  to 
imagine  the  attitude  of  credulous  expectancy 
with  which  he,  at  all  events,  would  "wait  for 
Home's  return"  via  the  open  window.  And 
the  others  were  doubtless  in  the  same  expectant 
frame  of  mind.  "Expectancy"  and  "sug- 
gestibility" will,  indeed,  work  marvels.  I 
shall  never  forget  how  the  truth  of  this  was 
borne  home  to  me  some  years  ago.  A  friend 
of  mine  —  now  a  physician  in  Maryland,  but 
at  that  time  a  medical  student  in  Toronto  — 
occasionally  amused  himself  by  giving  table- 
tipping  seances,  in  which  he  enacted  the  role 
of  medium.  There  was  no  suspicion  on  his 
sitters'  part  that  he  was  a  "fraud."  One 
evening  he  invoked  the  "spirit"  of  a  little 


The  Mysterious  Mr.  Home          169 

child,  who  had  been  dead  a  couple  of  years, 
and  proceeded  to  "spell  out"  some  highly 
edifying  messages.  Suddenly  the  seance  was 
interrupted  by  a  shriek  and  a  lady  present, 
not  a  relative  of  the  dead  child,  fell  to  the  floor 
in  a  faint.  When  revived,  she  declared  that 
while  the  messages  were  being  delivered  she 
had  seen  the  head  of  a  child  appear  through 
the  top  of  the  table. 

With  such  an  instance  before  us,  it  can 
hardly  be  deemed  surprising  that  Home  should 
be  able  to  play  on  the  imagination  of  sitters 
so  sympathetic  and  receptive  as  Lords  Dun- 
raven  and  Crawford  unquestionably  were. 
To  tell  the  truth,  Home's  whole  career,  with 
its  scintillating,  melodramatic,  and  uniformly 
successful  phases  is  altogether  inexplicable 
unless  it  be  assumed  that  he  possessed  the 
hypnotist's  qualities  in  a  superlative  degree. 

It  may  well  be,  however,  that  in  the  last 
analysis  he  not  only  deceived  others  but  also 
deceived  himself  —  that  his  charlatanry  was 
the  work  of  a  man  constitutionally  incapable 
of  distinguishing  between  reality  and  fiction 
in  so  far  as  related  to  the  performance  of  feats 
contributing  to  the  success  of  his  "mission." 
In  other  words,  that  he  was,  like  other  historic 


170    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

personages  whom  we  have  already  encoun- 
tered, a  victim  of  dissociation.  There  is  no 
gainsaying  the  fact  that  he  was  of  a  distinctly 
nervous  temperament;  and  it  is  equally  cer- 
tain that  he  chose  a  vocation,  and  placed 
himself  in  an  environment,  which  would 
tend  to  make  a  dissociated  state  habitual  with 
him.  But  this  is  bringing  us  to  the  considera- 
tion of  a  psychological  problem  which  would 
itself  require  a  volume  for  adequate  discussion. 
Enough  to  add  that,  when  all  is  said,  and 
viewed  from  whatever  angle,  Daniel  Dunglas 
Home,  was,  and  remains,  a  fascinating  human 
riddle. 


IX 

THE  WATSEKA  WONDER 

WHEN  the  biography  of  the  late  Richard 
Hodgson  is  written  one  of  its  most 
interesting  chapters  will  be  the  story  of  his 
investigation  into  the  strange  case  of  Lurancy 
Vennum.  Archinquisitor  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  the  Sherlock  Holmes  of 
professional  detectives  of  the  supernatural, 
in  this  instance  Hodgson  was  forced  to  con- 
fess himself  beaten  and  to  acknowledge  that 
in  his  belief  the  only  satisfactory  solution  of 
the  problem  before  him  was  to  be  had  through 
recourse  to  the  hypothesis  that  the  dead  can 
and  do  communicate  with  the  living. 

As  is  well  known,  subsequent  inquiries,  and 
notably  his  experiences  with  the  famous  Mrs. 
Piper,  led  him  to  the  enthusiastic  indorse- 
ment of  this  hypothesis ;  but  at  the  time  of  the 
Vennum  affair,  with  the  recollection  of  his 
triumphs  in  Europe  and  Asia  fresh  in  his 
mind,  he  was  still  a  thoroughgoing  if  open 
minded  skeptic;  and  to  Lurancy  Vennum  must 

171 


172     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

accordingly  be  given  the  credit  of  having 
brought  him,  so  to  speak,  to  the  turning  of 
the  ways.  Oddly  enough  too,  scarce  an  effort 
has  been  made  to  assemble  evidence  in  dis- 
proof of  his  findings  in  that  case  and  to  develop 
a  purely  naturalistic  explanation  of  a  mystery 
which  his  verdict  went  far  to  establish  in  the 
minds  of  many  as  a  classic  illustration  of 
supernatural  action.  Yet,  while  it  must  be 
admitted  that  until  recently  such  a  task  would 
have  been  extremely  difficult,  it  may  safely  be 
declared  that  the  phenomena  manifested 
through  Lurancy  Vennum  were  not  a  whit 
more  other-worldly  than  the  phenomena  pro- 
duced by  the  tricksters  whom  Hodgson  him- 
self so  skilfully  and  mercilessly  exposed. 

To  refresh  the  reader's  memory  with  regard 
to  the  facts  in  the  case,  it  will  be  recalled  that 
Lurancy  Vennum  was  a  young  girl,  between 
thirteen  and  fourteen  years  old,  the  daughter 
of  respectable  parents  living  at  Watseka, 
Illinois,  a  town  about  eighty-five  miles  south 
of  Chicago  and  boasting  at  the  time  a  popu- 
lation of  perhaps  fifteen  hundred.  On  the 
afternoon  of  July  11,  1877,  while  sitting  sew- 
ing with  her  mother,  she  suddenly  complained 
of  feeling  ill,  and  immediately  afterward  fell 


The  Watseka  Wonder  173 

to  the  floor  unconscious,  in  which  state  she 
remained  for  five  hours.  The  next  day  the 
same  thing  happened;  but  now,  while  still 
apparently  insensible  to  all  about  her,  she 
began  to  talk,  affirming  that  she  was  in  heaven 
and  in  the  company  of  numerous  spirits, 
whom  she  described,  naming  among  others 
the  spirit  of  her  brother  who  had  died  when 
she  was  only  three  years  old.  Her  parents, 
deeply  religious  people  of  an  orthodox  de- 
nomination, feared  that  she  had  become  in- 
sane, and  their  fears  were  increased  when, 
with  the  passage  of  time,  her  "fits,"  as  they 
called  her  trances,  became  more  frequent  and 
of  longer  duration,  lasting  from  one  to  eight 
hours  and  occurring  from  three  to  twelve 
times  a  day.  Physicians  could  do  nothing 
for  her,  and  by  January,  1878,  it  was  decided 
that  she  was  beyond  all  hope  of  cure  and 
that  the  proper  place  for  her  was  an  insane 
asylum. 

At  this  juncture  her  father  was  visited  by 
Mr.  Asa  B.  Roff,  also  a  resident  of  Watseka, 
but  having  no  more  than  a  casual  acquaint- 
anceship with  the  Vennums.  He  had  be- 
come interested  in  the  case,  he  explained, 
through  hearing  reports  of  the  intercourse 


174     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

Lurancy  claimed  to  have  with  the  world  of 
the  dead,  the  possibility  of  which,  being  a 
devout  spiritist,  he  did  not  in  the  slightest 
doubt.  Moreover,  he  himself  had  had  a 
daughter,  Mary,  long  dead,  who  had  been 
subject  to  conditions  exactly  like  Lurancy's 
and  had  given  incontrovertible  evidence  of 
possessing  supernatural  powers  of  a  clairvoy- 
ant nature.  In  her  time  she  too  had  been 
deemed  insane,  but  Mr.  Roff  was  confident 
that  she  had  really  been  of  entirely  sound 
mind,  and  equally  confident  that  the  present 
victim  of  "spirit  infestation,"  to  use  the  singu- 
lar term  employed  by  a  later  spiritistic  eulo- 
gist of  Lurancy,  was  also  of  sound  mind.  He 
therefore  begged  Mr.  Vennum  not  to  immure 
his  daughter  in  an  asylum;  and  Mrs.  Roff 
adding  her  entreaties,  it  was  finally  resolved 
as  a  last  resort  to  call  in  a  physician  from 
Janes ville,  Wisconsin,  who  was  himself  a 
spiritist  and  would,  the  Roffs  felt  sure,  be 
able  to  treat  the  case  with  great  success. 

This  physician,  Dr.  E.  Winchester  Stevens, 
paid  his  first  visit  to  Lurancy  in  Mr.  Roff's 
company  on  the  afternoon  of  January  31.  He 
found  the  girl,  as  he  afterward  related,  sitting 
"near  a  stove,  in  a  common  chair,  her  elbows 


The  Watseka  Wonder  175 

on  her  knees,  her  hands  under  her  chin,  feet 
curled  up  on  the  chair,  eyes  staring,  looking 
every  way  like  an  old  hag."  She  was  evi- 
dently in  an  ugly  mood,  for  she  refused  even 
to  shake  hands,  called  her  father  "Old  Black 
Dick"  and  her  mother  "Old  Granny,"  and  at 
first  kept  an  obstinate  silence.  But  presently, 
brightening  up,  she  announced  that  she  had 
discovered  that  Dr.  Stevens  was  a  "spiritual" 
doctor  and  could  help  her,  and  that  she  was 
ready  to  answer  any  questions  he  might  put. 
Now  followed  a  strange  dialogue.  In  reply 
to  his  queries  she  said  that  her  name  was  not 
Lurancy  Vennum  but  Katrina  Hogan,  that 
she  was  sixty-three  years  old,  and  had  come 
from  Germany  "through  the  air"  three  days 
before.  Changing  her  manner  quickly,  she 
confessed  that  she  had  lied  and  was  in  reality 
a  boy,  Willie  Canning,  who  had  died  and 
"now  is  here  because  he  wants  to  be."  More 
than  an  hour  passed  in  this  "insane  talk,"  as 
her  weeping  parents  accounted  it,  and  then, 
flinging  up  her  hands,  she  fell  headlong  in  a 
state  of  cataleptic  rigidity. 

Dr.  Stevens  promptly  renewed  his  question- 
ing, at  the  same  time  taking  both  her  hands 
in  his  and  endeavoring  to  "  magnetize "  her, 


176     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

to  quote  his  own  expression.  It  soon  devel- 
oped, according  to  the  replies  she  made,  that 
she  was  no  longer  on  earth  but  in  heaven  and 
surrounded  by  spirits  of  a  far  more  beneficent 
character  than  the  so-called  Katrina  and  Willie. 
With  all  the  earnestness  of  an  ardent  spiritist, 
the  doctor  immediately  suggested  that  she 
allow  herself  to  be  controlled  by  a  spirit  who 
would  prevent  those  that  were  evil  and  insane 
from  returning  to  trouble  her  and  her  family, 
and  would  assist  her  to  regain  health.  To 
which  she  answered  that  she  would  gladly  do 
so,  and  that  among  the  spirits  around  her  was 
one  that  the  angels  strongly  recommended  for 
this  very  purpose.  It  was,  she  said,  the 
spirit  of  a  young  girl  who  on  earth  had 
been  named  Mary  Roff. 

"Why,"  cried  Mr.  Roff,  "that  is  my  daugh- 
ter, who  has  been  in  heaven  these  twelve 
years.  Yes,  let  her  come.  We'll  be  glad  to 
have  her  come." 

Come  she  did,  as  the  greatly  bewildered 
Mr.  Vennum  testified  next  morning  during  a 
hasty  visit  to  Mr.  Roff  s  office. 

"My  girl,"  said  he,  "had  a  sound  night's 
sleep  after  you  and  Dr.  Stevens  left  us;  but 
to-day  she  asserts  that  she  is  Mary  Roff,  re- 


The  Watseka  Wonder  177 

fuses  to  recognize  her  mother  or  myself,  and 
demands  to  be  taken  to  your  house." 

At  this  amazing  information,  Mrs.  Roff  and 
her  surviving  daughter  Minerva,  who  since 
Mary's  death  had  married  a  Mr.  Alter, 
promptly  went  to  see  Lurancy.  From  a  seat 
at  the  window  she  beheld  them  approaching 
down  the  street,  and  with  an  exultant  cry  ex- 
claimed, "Here  comes  my  ma,  and  'Nervie'!" 
the  name  by  which  Mary  Roff  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  call  her  sister  in  girlhood.  Running 
to  the  door  and  throwing  her  arms  about  them 
as  they  entered,  she  hugged  and  kissed  them 
with  expressions  of  endearment  and  with 
whispering  allusions  to  past  events  of  which 
she  as  Lurancy  could  in  their  opinion  have 
had  absolutely  no  knowledge. 

Mr.  Roff  who  came  afterward,  she  greeted 
in  the  same  affectionate  way,  while  treating 
the  members  of  her  own  family  as  though  they 
were  entire  strangers.  To  her  father  and 
mother  it  seemed  that  this  must  be  only  a 
new  phase  of  her  insanity,  but  to  the  Roffs 
there  remained  no  doubt  that  in  her  they  be- 
held an  actual  reincarnation  of  the  girl  whom 
they  had  buried  twelve  years  before  —  that  is 
to  say,  when  Lurancy  herself  was  a  puny, 


178     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

wailing  infant.  Eagerly  they  seconded  her 
entreaties  to  be  allowed  to  return  with  them; 
and,  Mrs.  Vennum  being  completely  pros- 
trated by  this  unexpected  development,  it  was 
soon  decided  that  the  little  girl  should  for  the 
time  being  take  up  her  residence  under  the 
Roff  roof. 

She  removed  there  February  11,  and  on  the 
way  an  event  occurred  that  vastly  strength- 
ened belief  in  the  reality  of  her  claims.  The 
Vennums  and  the  Roffs  lived  at  opposite  ends 
of  Watseka;  but  the  latter  family,  at  the  time 
of  Mary's  death  in  1865,  had  been  occupying 
a  dwelling  in  a  central  section  of  the  town. 
Arrived  at  this  house,  Lurancy  unhesitatingly 
turned  to  enter  it,  and  seemed  much  aston- 
ished when  told  that  her  home  was  elsewhere. 
"Why,"  said  she,  in  a  positive  tone,  "I  know 
that  I  live  here."  It  was  indeed  with  some 
difficulty  that  she  was  persuaded  to  continue 
her  journey;  but  once  at  its  end  all  signs  of 
disappointment  vanished  and  she  passed  gaily 
from  room  to  room,  identifying  objects  which 
she  had  never  seen  before  but  which  had  been 
well-known  to  Mary  Roff.  Her  pseudo-parents 
were  in  ecstacies  of  joy.  "Truly,"  they  said 
to  each  other,  "our  daughter  who  was  dead 


The  Watseka  Wonder  179 

has  been  restored  to  us,"  and  anxiously  they 
inquired  of  her  how  long  they  might  hope  to 
have  her  with  them.  "The  angels,"  was  her 
response,  "will  let  me  stay  till  some  time  in 
May  —  and  oh  how  happy  I  am!" 

Happy  and  contented  she  proved  herself 
and,  which  was  remarked  by  all  who  saw  her, 
entirely  free  from  the  maladies  that  had  so 
sorely  beset  both  the  living  Lurancy  and  the 
dead  Mary.  For  her  life  as  Lurancy  she 
appeared  to  have  no  remembrance;  but  she 
readily  and  unfailingly  recollected  everything 
connected  with  the  career  of  Mary.  She  was 
well  aware  also  that  she  was  masquerading,  as 
it  were,  in  a  borrowed  body.  "Do  you  re- 
member," Dr.  Stevens  asked  her  one  day, 
"the  time  that  you  cut  your  arm?"  "Yes, 
indeed.  And,"  slipping  up  her  sleeve,  "I 
can  show  you  the  scar.  It  was  —  She 
paused,  and  quickly  added,  "Oh,  this  is  not 
the  arm;  that  one  is  in  the  ground,"  and  pro- 
ceeded to  describe  the  spot  where  Mary  had 
been  buried  and  the  circumstances  attending 
her  funeral.  Old  acquaintances  of  Mary's 
were  greeted  as  though  they  had  been  seen  only 
the  day  before,  although  in  one  or  two  cases 
there  was  lack  of  recognition,  due,  it  was  in- 


180     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

f erred,  to  physical  changes  in  the  visitor's  ap- 
pearance since  Mary  had  known  her  on  earth. 

Tests,  suggested  and  carried  out  by  Dr. 
Stevens  and  Mr.  Roff,  only  reinforced  the 
view  that  they  were  really  dealing  with  a  visi- 
tant from  the  unseen  world.  For  instance, 
while  the  little  girl  was  playing  outdoors  one 
afternoon,  Mr.  Roff  suggested  to  his  wife  that 
she  bring  down-stairs  a  velvet  hat  that  their 
daughter  had  worn  the  last  year  of  her  life, 
place  it  on  the  hat  stand,  and  see  if  Lurancy 
would  recognize  it.  This  was  done,  and  the 
recognition  was  instant.  With  a  smile  of  de- 
light Lurancy  picked  up  the  hat,  mentioned 
an  incident  connected  with  it,  and  asked, 
"Have  you  my  box  of  letters  also?"  The 
box  was  found,  and  rummaging  through  it  the 
child  presently  cried,  "  Oh,  ma,  here  is  a  collar 
I  tatted!  Ma,  why  did  you  not  show  me  my 
letters  and  things  before?"  One  by  one  she 
picked  out  and  identified  relics  dating  back 
to  Mary's  girlhood,  long  before  Lurancy 
Vennum  had  come  into  the  world. 

She  displayed,  too,  not  a  little  of  the  clairvoy- 
ant ability  ascribed  to  Mary.  The  story  is 
told  that  on  one  occasion  she  affirmed  that 
her  supposed  brother,  Frank  Roff,  would  be 


The  Watseka  Wonder  181 

taken  seriously  ill  during  the  night;  and  when, 
about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  he  was 
actually  stricken  with  what  is  vaguely  said  to 
have  been  "something  like  a  spasm  and  con- 
gestive chill,"  she  directed  Mr.  Roff  to  hurry 
next  door  where  he  would  find  Dr.  Stevens. 

"But,"  protested  Mr.  Roff,  "Dr.  Stevens  is 
in  quite  another  part  of  the  city  to-night." 

"No,"  she  calmly  said,  "he  has  come  back, 
and  you  will  find  him  where  I  say." 

Quite  incredulous,  Mr.  Roff  gave  his  neigh- 
bor's door-bell  a  lusty  pull,  and  the  next 
moment  was  talking  to  the  doctor,  who,  un- 
known to  the  Roffs,  was  spending  the  night 
there.  With  his  aid,  it  is  perhaps  worth  add- 
ing, brother  Frank  was  soon  relieved  of  the 
"spasm  and  congestive  chill." 

In  this  way,  continually  surprising  but 
constantly  delighting  the  happy  Roffs,  Lu- 
rancy  Vennum  remained  with  them  for  more 
than  three  months,  professing  complete  igno- 
ance  of  her  identity  and  enacting  with  the 
greatest  fidelity  the  role  of  the  spirit  who  was 
supposed  to  have  taken  possession  of  her. 
Early  in  May,  however,  she  called  Mrs.  Roff 
to  one  side  and  informed  her  in  a  voice  broken 
by  sobs  that  Lurancy  was  "coming  back" 


182     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

and  that  they  would  soon  have  to  take  another 
farewell  of  their  Mary.  This  said,  a  change 
became  apparent  in  her.  She  glared  wildly 
around,  and  in  an  agitated  tone  demanded, 
"Where  am  I?  I  was  never  here  before.  I 
want  to  go  home."  Mrs.  Roff,  heartbroken, 
explained  that  she  had  been  under  the  con- 
trol of  Mary's  spirit  for  the  purpose  of  "curing 
her  body,"  and  told  her  that  her  parents 
would  be  sent  for.  But  within  five  minutes 
she  had  again  lost  all  knowledge  of  her  true 
identity,  and  seemingly  was  Mary  Roff  once 
more,  overjoyed  that  she  had  been  permitted 
to  return. 

For  some  days  she  continued  in  this  state, 
with  only  occasional  lapses  into  her  original 
self;  then,  on  the  morning  of  May  21,  she  an- 
nounced that  the  time  for  definite  leave-taking 
had  at  last  arrived,  and  with  evident  grief 
went  about  among  the  neighbors  bidding  them 
good-by.  It  was  arranged  that  "sister  Ner- 
vie"  should  take  her  to  Mr.  Roff' s  office,  and 
that  Mr.  Roff  should  thence  escort  her  home. 
En  route  there  were  sharp  interchanges  of 
personality,  with  the  spirit  control  dominant; 
but  when  the  office  was  reached  it  became 
evident  that  she  had  fully  come  into  her  own 


The  Watseka  Wonder  183 

again.  The  night  before  she  had  wept  bitterly 
at  the  thought  of  leaving  her  "father."  Now 
she  addressed  him  calmly  as  "Mr.  Roff," 
called  herself  Lurancy,  and  said  that  her  one 
wish  was  to  see  her  parents  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible. Nor,  as  the  Vennums  were  quickly  to 
discover,  did  she  return  to  torment  and  alarm 
them  by  the  weird  actions  of  the  preceding 
months.  On  the  contrary,  they  found  her 
healthy  and  normal  in  mind  and  body,  com- 
pletely cured,  as  a  result,  the  Roffs  emphat- 
ically declared,  of  the  intervention  of  the 
spirit  of  their  beloved  daughter. 

Needless  to  say,  the  people  of  Watseka  and 
the  surrounding  country  had  watched  with 
breathless  interest  the  progress  of  this  curious 
affair;  but  it  was  not  until  three  months  after 
the  "possession"  had  ended  that  the  public 
at  large  obtained  any  knowledge  of  it.  The 
first  intimation,  outside  of  unnoticed  reports 
in  local  newspapers,  came  through  the  me- 
dium of  two  articles  contributed  by  Dr. 
Stevens  to  the  August  3  and  10,  1878,  issues 
of  The  Religio-Philosophical  Journal,  one  of 
the  leading  spiritist  organs  of  the  United  States. 
Traversing  the  case  in  the  fullest  detail,  and 
emphasizing  the  fact  that  up  to  the  moment 


184     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

of  writing  the  principal  actor  had  had  no  re- 
turn of  the  ills  from  which  she  had  previously 
suffered,  Dr.  Stevens  gave  it  as  his  unqualified 
conviction  that  the  spirit  of  Mary  Roff  had 
actually  revisited  earth  in  the  person  of  Lu- 
rancy  Vennum,  and  had  been  the  instrument 
of  her  cure.  This  view  naturally  commended 
itself  to  spiritists,  but  by  the  unbelieving  it 
was  vigorously  combatted,  not  a  few  insinu- 
ating or  openly  alleging  that  Dr.  Stevens's 
narrative  was  a  work  of  fiction.  The  veracity 
of  the  Roffs  was  also  attacked.  "Can  the 
truthfulness  of  the  narrative,"  one  skeptical 
inquirer  wrote  Mr.  Roff,  "be  substantiated 
outside  of  yourself  and  those  immediately  in- 
terested ?  Can  it  be  shown  that  there  was  no 
collusion  between  the  parties?"  And  an- 
other asked  him,  "Is  it  a  fact,  or  is  it  a  story 
made  up  to  see  how  cunning  a  tale  one  can 
tell?" 

Waxing  indignant,  Mr.  Roff  wrote  a  long 
letter  to  The  Religio-Philosophical  Journal  de- 
nouncing the  imputation  of  fraud,  giving  the 
names  of  a  number  of  men  who  would  vouch 
for  his  integrity,  and  concluding  with  the 
statement:  "I  am  now  sixty  years  old;  have 
resided  in  Iroquois  county  thirty  years;  and 


The  Watseka  Wonder  185 

would  not  now  sacrifice  what  reputation  I 
may  have  by  being  party  to  the  publication 
of  such  a  narrative,  if  it  was  not  perfectly 
true." 

Following  this  there  appeared  in  The  Re- 
ligio-Philosophical  Journal  several  letters  from 
well-known  Illinois  professional  men  warmly 
indorsing  Mr.  Roff's  character,  and  an  an- 
nouncement to  the  effect  that  the  editor, 
Colonel  J.  C.  Bundy,  himself  of  undoubted 
honesty,  "has  entire  confidence  in  the  truth- 
fulness of  the  narrative  and  believes  from  his 
knowledge  of  the  witnesses  that  the  account 
is  unimpeachable  in  every  particular."  As 
for  Dr.  Stevens,  Colonel  Bundy  declared  that 
he  had  been  personally  acquainted  with  the 
physician  for  years,  and  had  '.'implicit  confi- 
dence in  his  veracity."  After  all  this,  accusa- 
tions of  perjury  and  deception  were  obviously 
futile,  and,  no  adequate  non-spiritistic  inter- 
pretation being  forthcoming,  there  was  an 
increasing  tendency  to  accept  the  view  ad- 
vanced by  those  who  had  participated  in  the 
affair. 

Such  was  the  situation  at  the  time  of  Rich- 
ard Hodgson's  advent.  Primarily,  as  will  be 
remembered  by  all  who  have  followed  the 


186     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

work  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
Dr.  Hodgson  had  come  to  this  country  to  in- 
vestigate the  trance  mediumship  of  Mrs. 
Leonora  Piper.  But  his  attention  having  been 
called  to  the  Vennum  mystery,  he  visited 
Watseka  in  April,  1890,  and  instituted  a 
rigorous  cross-examination  of  the  surviving 
witnesses.  Dr.  Stevens  was  dead,  and  Lu- 
rancy  herself  had  married  and  moved  with  her 
husband  to  Kansas,  but  Dr.  Hodgson  was 
able  to  interview  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roff,  Mrs. 
Alter,  and  half  a  dozen  neighbors  who  had 
personal  knowledge  of  the  "possession."  All 
answered  his  questions  freely  and  fully,  re- 
iterating the  facts  as  given  in  Dr.  Stevens's 
narrative,  and  adding  some  interesting  in- 
formation hitherto  not  made  public.  In  the 
main  this  bore  on  the  question  of  identity  and 
tended  to  vindicate  the  reincarnation  theory. 
It  also  developed  that  while  Lurancy  had 
grown  to  be  a  strong,  healthy  woman,  she  had 
had  occasional  returns  of  Mary's  spirit  in  the 
years  immediately  following  the  chief  visita- 
tion; but  that  these  had  ceased  with  her 
marriage  to  a  man  who,  Roff  regretfully  ob- 
served, had  never  made  himself  acquainted 
with  spiritism  and  therefore  "furnished  poor 


The  Watseka  Wonder  187 

conditions   for   further   development   in   that 
direction." 

Appreciating  the  fact  that  Mr.  Roff  and  his 
family  would  furnish  the  best  possible  con- 
ditions for  such  development,  and  that  he 
must  be  on  his  guard  against  unconscious 
exaggeration  and  misstatement,  Dr.  Hodgson 
nevertheless  deemed  the  evidence  presented  to 
him  too  strong  to  be  explained  away  on 
naturalistic  grounds.  Contributing  to  The 
Religio-Philosophical  Journal  an  account  of 
his  inquiry  and  of  the  additional  data  it  had 
brought  to  light,  he  described  the  case  as 
"unique  among  the  records  of  supernormal 
occurrences,"  and  frankly  admitted  that  he 
could  not  "find  any  satisfactory  interpreta- 
tion of  it  except  the  spiritistic." 

Yet,  as  was  said  at  the  outset,  it  may  now 
be  affirmed  that  another  interpretation  is  pos- 
sible, and  one  far  more  satisfactory  than  the 
spiritistic ;  this,  too,  without  impeaching  in  any 
way  the  truthfulness  of  the  testimony  given  by 
Dr.  Stevens,  the  Roffs,  and  the  numerous 
other  witnesses.  To  begin:  apart  from  the 
supernatural  implications  forced  into  it  by  the 
appearance  of  the  so-called  spirit  control,  it 


188     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

is  clear  that  the  affair  bears  a  striking  resem- 
blance to  the  instances  of  "secondary"  or 
"multiple"  personality  which  recent  research 
has  discovered  in  such  numbers,  and  which 
are  due  to  perfectly  natural,  if  often  obscure, 
causes.  In  these,  it  has  already  been  pointed 
out,  as  the  result  of  an  illness,  a  blow,  a  shock, 
or  some  other  unusual  stimulus,  there  is  a 
partial  or  complete  effacement  of  the  original 
personality  of  the  victim  and  its  replacement 
by  a  new  personality,  sometimes  of  radically 
different  characteristics  from  the  normal  self. 
A  sufficient  example  is  the  case  of  the  Rev. 
Thomas  C.  Hanna,  for  knowledge  of  which 
the  scientific  world  is  indebted  to  Dr.  Boris 
Sidis.*  Following  a  fall  from  his  carriage, 
Mr.  Hanna,  a  Connecticut  clergyman,  lost  all 
consciousness  of  his  identity,  had  no  memory 
for  the  events  of  his  life  prior  to  the  accident, 
recognized  none  of  his  friends,  could  not  read 
or  write,  nor  so  much  as  walk  or  talk,  —  was, 
in  fact,  like  a  child  new  born.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  soon  as  the  rudiments  of  education 
were  acquired  by  him  once  more,  he  showed 
himself  the  possessor  of  a  vigorous,  independ- 
ent, self-reliant  personality,  lacking  all  knowl- 

*  In  his  "  Multiple  Personality." 


The  Watseka  Wonder  189 

edge  of  the  original  personality,  but  still  able 
to  adapt  himself  readily  to  his  environment 
and  make  headway  in  the  world.  Ultimately, 
through  methods  which  are  distinctively  mod- 
ern, Dr.  Sidis  was  able  to  recall  the  vanished 
self,  and,  fusing  the  secondary  self  with  it, 
restore  the  clergyman  to  his  former  sphere  of 
usefulness. 

This,  of  course,  is  an  extreme  example. 
The  usual  procedure  is  for  the  secondary  per- 
sonality to  retain  some  of  the  characteristics  of 
the  original  self  —  as  the  ability  to  read,  write, 
etc.  —  and  give  itself  a  name.  In  this  way 
Ansel  Bourne,  the  Rhode  Island  itinerant 
preacher,  became  metamorphosed  into  A.  J. 
Brown,  and,  without  any  recollection  of  his 
former  career  or  relationships,  drifted  to  Penn- 
sylvania and  began  an  entirely  new  existence 
as  a  shopkeeper  in  a  small  country  town. 
Similarly  with  Dr.  R.  Osgood  Mason's  patient, 
Alma  Z.,  in  whom  the  secondary  personality 
assumed  the  odd  name  of  "Twoey,"  spoke, 
as  Dr.  Mason  phrased  it,  "in  a  peculiar  child- 
like and  Indianlike  dialect,"  and  announced 
that  her  mission  was  to  cure  the  broken  down 
physical  organism  of  the  original  self,  which 
remained  completely  in  abeyance  so  long  as 


190    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

"Twoey"  was  in  evidence.  Here,  as  is  appar- 
ent, we  have  a  case  almost  identical  with  that 
of  Lurancy  Vennuni,  the  sole  difference  being 
that  "Twoey"  -  who,  by  the  way,  is  credited 
with  having  exercised  seemingly  supernormal 
powers  —  did  not  pose  as  a  returned  visitant 
from  the  world  of  spirits. 

Thus  far,  then,  depending  on  the  argument 
from  analogy,  the  presumption  is  strong  that 
Lurancy 's  case  belongs  to  the  same  category 
as  the  cases  just  mentioned.  In  the  one,  as  in 
the  others,  we  have  loss  of  the  original  self, 
development  of  a  new  self,  and  the  enactment 
by  the  latter  of  a  role  conspicuously  alien  from 
that  played  by  the  former.  The  one  diffi- 
culty in  the  way  of  unreserved  acceptance  of 
this  view  is  the  character  of  the  secondary 
personality  which  replaced  Lurancy's  original 
personality.  Here  the  positive  claim  was  made 
that  the  secondary  personality  was  in  reality 
the  personality  of  a  girl  long  dead,  and  by 
way  of  proof  vivid  knowledge  of  the  life,  cir- 
cumstances, and  conduct  of  that  girl  was 
offered.  But  on  this  point  considerable  light 
is  shed  by  the  discovery  that  in  a  number  of 
instances  of  secondary  personality  in  which  no 
supernatural  pretensions  are  advanced  there 


The  Watseka  Wonder  191 

is  a  notable  sharpening  of  the  faculties,  knowl- 
edge being  obtained  telepathically  or  clairvoy- 
antly;  and  by  the  further  discovery  that  it  is 
quite  possible  to  create  experimentally  second- 
ary selves  assuming  the  characteristics  of  real 
persons  who  have  died. 

In  this  the  creative  force  is  nothing  more  or 
less  than  suggestion.  There  is  on  record,  in- 
deed, an  instance  of  mediumship  in  which  the 
medium,  an  amateur  investigator  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  spiritism,  clearly  recognized  that 
his  various  impersonations  were  suggested  to 
him  by  the  spectators.  This  gentleman,  Mr. 
Charles  H.  Tout,  of  Vancouver,  records 
that  after  attending  a  few  seances  with  some 
friends  he  felt  a  strong  impulse  to  turn  me- 
dium himself,  and  assume  a  foreign  person- 
ality. Yielding  to  the  impulse,  he  discovered, 
much  to  his  amazement,  that  without  losing 
complete  control  of  his  consciousness,  he  could 
develop  a  secondary  self  that  would  impose 
on  the  beholders  as  a  discarnate  spirit.  On 
one  occasion  he  thus  acted  in  a  semi-con- 
scious way  the  part  of  a  dead  woman,  the 
mother  of  a  friend  present,  and  the  impersona- 
tion was  accepted  as  a  genuine  case  of  spirit 
control.  On  another,  having  given  several 


192     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

successful  impersonations,  he  suddenly  felt 
weak  and  ill,  and  almost  fell  to  the  floor. 

At  this  point,  he  stated,  one  of  the  sitters 
"made  the  remark,  which  I  remember  to  have 
overheard,  'It  is  father  controlling  him,'  and 
I  then  seemed  to  realize  who  I  was  and  whom 
I  was  seeking.  I  began  to  be  distressed  in 
my  lungs,  and  should  have  fallen  if  they  had 
not  held  me  by  the  hands  and  let  me  back 
gently  upon  the  floor.  ...  I  was  in  a  measure 
still  conscious  of  my  actions,  though  not  of 
my  surroundings,  and  I  have  a  clear  memory 
of  seeing  myself  in  the  character  of  my  dying 
father  lying  in  the  bed  and  in  the  room  in 
which  he  died.  It  was  a  most  curious  sensa- 
tion. I  saw  his  shrunken  hands  and  face,  and 
lived  again  through  his  dying  moments;  only 
now  I  was  both  myself,  in  an  indistinct  sort 
of  way,  and  my  father,  with  his  feelings  and 
appearance." 

All  of  this  Tout  explained  correctly  as  "the 
dramatic  working  out,  by  some  half  conscious 
stratum  of  his  personality,  of  suggestions  made 
at  the  time  by  other  members  of  the  circle,  or 
received  in  prior  experiences  of  the  kind." 
In  most  instances,  however,  the  original  self 
is  completely  effaced,  and  no  consciousness  is 


The  Watseka  Wonder  193 

retained  of  the  performances  of  the  secondary 
self;  but  that  an  avenue  of  sense  is  still  open 
is  sufficiently  demonstrated  by  the  readiness 
with  which,  in  hypnotic  experiments,  seem- 
ingly insensible  subjects  respond  to  the  sug- 
gestions of  the  operator.  Here,  therefore,  we 
find  our  clue  to  the  solution  of  the  mystery 
of  Lurancy  Vennum.  A  victim  of  a  psychic 
catastrophe,  the  cause  of  which  must  be  left 
to  conjecture  in  the  absence  of  knowledge  of 
her  previous  history,  she  was  placed  in  pre- 
cisely the  position  of  the  adventurous  Mr. 
Tout  and  of  the  inert  subjects  of  the  hypno- 
tist's art.  That  is  to  say,  having  lost  momen- 
tarily all  knowledge  and  control  of  her  own 
personality,  the  character  her  new  personality 
would  assume  depended  on  the  suggestions 
received  from  those  about  her. 

Yet  not  altogether.  Dr.  Stevens's  detailed 
record  contains  a  reference  which  indicates 
strongly  that  the  spiritistic  tendency  manifest 
from  the  onset  of  her  trouble  was  to  some 
extent  predetermined.  A  few  days  before  the 
first  attack  she  informed  the  family  that  "there 
were  persons  in  my  room  last  night,  and  they 
called  'Rancy,  Rancy!'  and  I  felt  their  breath 
on  my  face";  and  the  next  night,  repeating 


194     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

the  same  story,  she  sought  refuge  in  her 
mother's  bed.  These  fanciful  notions,  symp- 
tomatic of  the  coming  trouble  and  possibly 
provocative  of  it,  would  act  in  the  way  of  a 
powerful  autosuggestion,  and  would  of  them- 
selves explain  why  there  resulted  an  inchoate, 
tentative,  vague  personality,  instead  of  the 
robust,  definite  personality  that  assumes  con- 
trol in  most  cases. 

At  first,  the  reader  will  remember,  she 
sought  vainly  and  wildly  and  wholly  subcon- 
sciously —  it  cannot  be  made  too  clear  that 
she  was  no  longer  consciously  responsible  for 
her  acts  —  for  a  satisfactory  self  of  ghostly 
origin.  The  aged  Katrina,  the  masculine 
Willie,  and  other  imaginary  beings  were  tried 
and  rejected;  principally,  no  doubt,  because 
her  thirteen-year-old  imagination  was  unequal 
to  the  task  of  investing  them  with  satisfactory 
attributes.  From  her  relatives  she  obtained 
no  assistance  in  the  strange  quest.  They, 
disbelieving  in  "spirits,"  persisted  in  calling 
her  insane  —  a  comfortless  and  far  from 
beneficial  suggestion.  But  with  the  interven- 
tion of  the  Roffs  and  Dr.  Stevens  every- 
thing changed.  Not  questioning  the  truth  of 
her  assertions,  they  confirmed  her  in  them, 


The  Watseka  Wonder  195 

and   offered   her   into   the  bargain  a  ready- 
made  personality. 

Here  at  last  was  something  tangible,  a 
starting-point,  a  foundation-stone.  Mary 
Roff  had  had  a  real  existence,  had  had 
thoughts,  feelings,  desires,  a  life  of  flesh  and 
blood.  And  Mary,  they  assured  the  poor, 
perturbed,  disintegrated  self,  could  help  her 
regain  all  that  she  had  lost.  Very  well,  let 
Mary  come,  and  the  sooner  she  came  the 
better.  For  knowledge  of  Mary,  of  her  char- 
acteristics, her  relationships,  her  friends,  her 
earthly  career,  it  was  necessary  only  to  tap 
telepathically  the  reservoir  of  information  pos- 
sessed by  Mary's  family;  and  there  would  be 
available  besides  a  wealth  of  data  in  chance 
remarks,  unconscious  hints,  unnoticed  prompt- 
ings. She  had  been  too  long  in  search  of  a 
personality  not  to  grasp  at  the  opening  now 
afforded.  Focused  thus  by  suggestion,  —  that 
subtle,  all-pervasive  influence  which  man  is 
only  now  beginning  to  appreciate,  —  the  basic 
delusional  idea  promptly  took  root,  blossomed, 
and  burst  into  an  amazing  fruition.  Banished 
were  the  spurious  Katrinas  and  Willies.  In 
their  stead  reigned  Mary,  no  less  spurious  in 
point  of  fact,  but  so  cunningly  counterfeiting 


196     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

the  true  Mary  that  the  deception  was  not  once 
detected. 

Mark  too  how  suggestion  sufficed  not  only 
to  create  the  Mary  personality  but  to  expel  it 
and  restore  the  hapless  Lurancy  to  perfect 
health.  If  the  responsibility  for  the  creation 
rests  on  Dr.  Stevens  and  the  Roffs,  to  them 
likewise  belongs  the  credit  for  the  cure.  Their 
insistence  on  the  fact  that  Mary's  spirit  could 
and  would  be  of  assistance,  was  itself  as  power- 
ful a  suggestion  as  could  be  hit  upon  by  the 
most  expert  of  modern  practitioners  of  psy- 
chotherapeutics ;  and  in  unconsciously  per- 
suading the  spirit  to  set  a  limit  to  its  time  of 
"possession"  they  made  another  suggestion  of 
rare  curative  value.  To  the  suggestionally  in- 
spired fixed  idea  that  she  was  not  Lurancy 
Vennum  but  Mary  Roff  was  thus  added  the 
fixed  idea,  derived  from  the  same  source,  that 
in  May  she  would  become  Lurancy  Vennum 
again,  and  a  perfectly  well  Lurancy.  It  was 
as  though  the  Roffs  had  actually  hypnotized 
her  and  given  her  commands  that  were  to  be 
obeyed  with  the  fidelity  characteristic  of  the 
obedience  hypnotized  subjects  render  to  the 
operator. 

When  the  time  came  the  transformation  was 


The  Watseka  Wonder  197 

duly  effected,  though,  as  has  been  seen,  not 
without  a  struggle,  a  period  of  alternating  per- 
sonality, with  Mary  at  one  moment  supreme 
and  Lurancy  at  another.  But  this  is  a  phe- 
nomenon that  need  give  us  no  concern.  Ex- 
actly the  same  thing  happened  in  the  last 
stages  of  the  Hanna  case.  Nor  do  the  fugitive 
recurrences  of  the  Mary  personality  signify 
aught  than  that  Lurancy  was  still  unduly  sug- 
gestionable.  Note  that  these  recurrences,  ac- 
cording to  the  available  evidence,  developed 
only  when  the  Roffs  paid  her  visits ;  and  that 
they  ceased  entirely  upon  her  marriage  to  a 
man  not  interested  in  spiritism,  and  her  re- 
moval to  a  distant  part  of  the  country.* 

*  It  is  proper  to  add  that  since  the  recent  publication  of  this 
paper  as  a  contribution  to  The  Associated  Sunday  Magazine,  the 
charge  of  fraud  has  been  revived  in  connection  with  the  "Watseka 
Wonder."  It  is  asserted  by  a  resident  of  Watseka  that  although 
Lurancy  Vennum  unquestionably  was  a  sufferer  from  "nervous 
trouble,"  she  consciously  impersonated  the  "spirit"  of  Mary  Roff, 
her  motive  being  a  desire  to  be  near  one  of  the  Roff  boys,  with 
whom  she  imagined  herself  in  love. 


X 

A  MEDIEVAL  GHOST  HUNTER 


name  of  Dr.  John  Dee  is  scarcely 
A  known  to-day,  yet  Dr.  Dee  has  some 
exceedingly  well-defined  claims  to  remem- 
brance. He  was  one  of  the  foremost  scien- 
tists of  the  Tudor  period  in  English  history. 
He  was  famed  as  a  mathematician,  astrono- 
mer, and  philosopher  not  only  in  his  native 
land  but  in  every  European  center  of  learn- 
ing. Before  he  was  twenty  he  penned  a  re- 
markable treatise  on  logic,  and  he  left  behind 
him  at  his  death  a  total  of  nearly  a  hundred 
works  on  all  manner  of  recondite  subjects. 
He  was  the  means  of  introducing  into  Eng- 
land a  number  of  astronomical  instruments 
hitherto  unused,  and  even  unknown,  in  that 
country.  His  lectures  on  geometry  were  the 
delight  of  all  who  heard  them.  In  Elizabeth's 
reign  he  was  frequently  consulted  by  the 
highest  ministers  of  the  crown  with  regard  to 
affairs  of  State,  and  was  the  confidant  of  the 
queen  herself,  who  more  than  once  employed 


A  Medieval  Ghost  Hunter  199 

him  on  secret  missions.  He  was  interested 
in  everyday  affairs  as  well  as  in  questions  of 
theoretical  importance.  The  reformation  of 
the  calendar  long  engaged  his  attention.  He 
charted  for  Elizabeth  her  distant  colonial 
dominions.  He  preached  the  doctrine  of  sea- 
power,  and,  like  Hakluyt,  advocated  the  up- 
building of  a  strong  navy.  He  was,  in  some 
sort,  a  participant  in  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert's 
scheme  for  New  World  colonization. 

In  a  word,  Dr.  John  Dee  was  a  phenome- 
nally many-sided  man  in  an  age  that  was  pecu- 
liarly productive  of  many-sided  men.  Even 
yet,  the  catalogue  of  his  interests  and  accom- 
plishments is  by  no  means  exhausted.  Indeed, 
his  chief  claim  to  fame  —  and,  para- 
doxically enough,  the  great  reason  why  his 
reputation  practically  died  with  him  —  lies  in 
the  fact  that  he  was  one  of  the  earliest  of 
psychical  researchers.  At  a  time  when  all 
men  unhesitatingly  entertained  a  belief  in  the 
overshadowing  presence  of  spirits  and  their 
constant  intervention  in  human  affairs,  Dr. 
Dee  resolved  to  prove,  if  possible,  the  actual 
existence  of  these  mysterious  and  unseen 
beings.  To  encourage  him  in  his  ghost- 
hunting  zeal  was  the  hope  that  the  spirits,  if 


200     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

actually  located  by  him,  might  reward  his 
enterprise  by  unfolding  a  secret  that  had  long 
been  the  despair  of  all  medieval  scientists  — 
the  secret  of  the  philosopher's  stone,  of  the 
precious  formula  whereby  the  baser  metals 
could  be  transmuted  into  shining  gold.  With 
the  heartiest  enthusiasm,  therefore,  Dr.  Dee 
went  to  work,  and  although  the  spirits  with 
whom  he  ultimately  came  into  constant  com- 
munication brought  him  no  gold  but  many 
tribulations,  he  remained  an  ardent  psychical 
researcher  to  the  day  of  his  death. 

Just  when  he  began  his  explorations  of  the 
invisible  world  it  is  impossible  to  say.  But  it 
must  have  been  at  a  very  early  age,  for  he  was 
barely  twenty-five  when  a  rumor  spread  that 
he  was  dabbling  in  the  black  arts.  Two  years 
later,  in  1554,  he  was  definitely  accused  of 
trying  to  take  the  life  of  Queen  Mary  by  en- 
chantments, and  on  this  charge  was  thrown 
into  prison.  For  cellmate  he  had  Barthlet 
Green,  who  parted  from  him  only  to  meet  an 
agonizing  death  in  the  flames,  as  an  arch- 
heretic.  Dee  himself  was  threatened  with  the 
stake,  and  was  actually  placed  on  trial  for  his 
life  before  the  dread  Court  of  the  Star  Cham- 
ber. But  he  seems  to  have  had,  throughout 


A  Medieval  Ghost  Hunter  201 

his  entire  career,  a  singularly  plausible  manner, 
and  a  magnetic,  winning  personality.  He 
succeeded  in  convincing  his  judges  both  of  his 
innocence  of  traitorous  designs  and  his  re- 
ligious orthodoxy,  and  was  allowed  to  go  scot 
free.  Elizabeth,  on  her  accession  to  the 
throne,  naturally  looked  on  him  with  favor, 
as  one  who  had  been  persecuted  by  her  sister; 
and  with  the  more  favor  since  it  was  widely 
reported  that  he  was  on  the  eve  of  making 
the  grand  discovery  for  which  other  alchemists 
had  ever  labored  in  vain.  A  man  who  might 
some  day  make  gold  at  will  was  certainly  not 
to  be  despised;  rather,  he  should  be  cultivated. 
Nor  was  her  esteem  for  Dee  lessened  by  the 
success  with  which,  by  astrological  calcula- 
tions, he  named  a  favorable  day  for  her 
coronation;  and,  a  little  later,  by  solemn  dis- 
enchantment warded  off  the  ill  effects  of  the 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  incident,  when  a  puppet 
of  wax,  representing  Elizabeth,  was  found 
lying  on  the  ground  with  a  huge  pin  stuck 
through  its  breast. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  Dee  was 
making  headway  neither  in  his  quest  for  the 
philosopher's  stone  nor  in  his  efforts  to  prove 
the  existence  of  a  spiritual  world.  In  vain 


202    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

he  pored  over  every  work  of  occultism  upon 
which  he  could  lay  his  hands,  and  tried  all 
known  means  of  incantation.  Year  after  year 
passed  without  result,  until  at  last  he  hit  on 
the  expedient  of  crystal-gazing.  As  every 
student  of  things  psychical  is  aware,  if  one 
takes  a  crystal,  or  glass  of  water,  or  other 
body  with  a  reflecting  surface,  and  gaze  at  it 
steadily,  he  may  possibly  perceive,  after  a 
greater  or  less  length  of  time,  shadowy  images 
of  persons  or  scenes  in  the  substance  that  fixes 
his  attention.  It  was  so  with  Dr.  Dee,  and 
not  having  any  understanding  of  the  laws  of 
subconscious  mental  action  he  soon  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  shadowy  figures  he 
saw  in  the  crystal  were  veritable  spirits. 
From  this  it  was  an  easy  step  to  imagine  that 
they  really  talked  to  him  and  sought  to  convey 
to  him  a  knowledge  of  the  great  secrets  of  this 
world  and  the  next. 

The  only  difficulty  was  that  he  could  not 
understand  what  they  said  —  or,  rather,  what 
he  fancied  they  said.  The  obvious  thing  to 
do  was  to  find  a  crystal-gazer  with  the  gift  of 
the  spirit  language,  and  induce  him  to  inter- 
pret for  Dr.  Dee's  benefit  the  revelations  of 
the  images  in  the  glass.  Such  a  crystal-gazer 


A  Medieval  Ghost  Hunter  203 

was  ready  at  hand  in  the  person  of  a  young 
man  named  Edward  Kelley.  Among  the 
common  people,  as  Dee  well  knew,  Kelley  had 
the  reputation  of  being  a  bold  and  wicked 
wizard.  He  had  been  born  in  Worcester,  and 
trained  in  the  apothecary's  business,  but, 
tempted  by  the  prospect  of  securing  great 
wealth  at  a  minimum  of  trouble,  he  had  turned 
alchemist  and  magician.  It  was  rumored 
that  on  at  least  one  occasion  he  had  disinterred 
a  freshly  buried  corpse,  and  by  his  incanta- 
tions had  compelled  the  spirit  of  the  dead 
man  to  speak  to  him.  There  was  more  truth 
in  the  report  that  the  reason  he  always  wore 
a  close-fitting  skull-cap  was  to  conceal  the 
loss  of  his  ears,  which  had  been  forfeited  to 
the  Government  of  England  on  his  conviction 
for  forgery.  Of  this  last  unpleasant  incident 
Dr.  Dee  seems  to  have  known  nothing.  At 
any  rate,  with  child-like  confidence,  he  sent 
for  Kelley,  told  him  of  the  properties  of  his 
magic  crystal  —  which  the  now  thoroughly 
infatuated  doctor  represented  as  having  been 
bestowed  on  him  by  the  angel  Uriel  —  and 
asked  Kelley  if  he  would  interpret  for  him 
the  wonderful  words  of  the  spirits. 

Kelley,  as  shrewd  and  unscrupulous  a  man 


204     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

as  any  in  the  annals  of  imposture,  readily 
consented,  but  on  pretty  hard  terms.  He  was 
to  be  taken  in  as  a  member  of  Dr.  Dee's  family, 
retained  on  a  contract,  and  paid  an  annual 
stipend  of  fifty  pounds,  quite  a  large  sum  in 
those  times.  On  this  understanding  he  went 
to  work,  and  day  after  day,  for  years,  regaled 
the  credulous  Dee  with  monologues  purport- 
ing to  be  delivered  by  the  spirits  in  the  crystal. 
Everything  Kelley  told  him,  Dr.  Dee  faithfully 
noted  down,  and  many  years  later,  long  after 
both  Dee  and  Kelley  had  been  carried  to  their 
graves,  these  manuscript  notes  of  the  seances 
were  published.  The  volume  containing  them 
—  a  massive,  closely  printed  folio  entitled  "A 
True  and  Faithful  Relation  of  What  Passed 
for  Many  Years  Between  Dr.  John  Dee  and 
Some  Spirits" — is  one  of  the  great  curiosi- 
ties of  literature.  A  copy  of  the  original  edi- 
tion is  before  me  as  I  write,  and  I  will  quote 
from  it  just  enough  to  show  the  character  of 
the  "revelations"  vouchsafed  to  Dee  through 
the  mediumship  of  the  cunning  Kelley. 

"Wednesday,  19  Junii,  I  made  a  prayer  to 
God  and  there  appeared  one,  having  two  gar- 
ments in  his  hands,  who  answered,  *A  good 
praise,  with  a  wavering  mind.' 


A  Medieval  Ghost  Hunter  205 

"God  made  my  mind  stable,  and  to  be 
seasoned  with  the  intellectual  leaven,  free  of 
all  sensible  mutability. 

"E.  K.  [said]  'One  of  these  two  garments  is 
pure  white:  the  other  is  speckled  of  divers 
colors;  he  layeth  them  down  before  him,  he 
layeth  also  a  speckled  cap  down  before  him 
at  his  feet;  he  hath  no  cap  on  his  head:  his 
hair  is  long  and  yellow,  but  his  face  cannot 
be  seen.  .  .  .  Now  he  putteth  on  his  pied 
coat  and  his  pied  cap,  he  casteth  one  side  of 
his  gown  over  his  shoulder  and  he  danceth, 
and  saith,  "There  is  a  God,  let  us  be  merry!" 

"E.  K.     'He  danceth  still.' 

"'There  is  a  heaven,  let  us  be  merry. 

"  '  Doth  this  doctrine  teach  you  to  know 
God,  or  to  be  skilful  in  the  heavens  ? 

"  '  Note  it.' 

"E.  K.  'Now  he  putteth  off  his  clothes 
again:  now  he  kneeleth  down,  and  washeth 
his  head  and  his  neck  and  his  face,  and 
shaketh  his  clothes,  and  plucketh  off  the 
uttermost  sole  of  his  shoes,  and  falleth 
prostrate  on  the  ground,  and  saith,  "Vouch- 
safe, oh  God,  to  take  away  the  weariness  of 
my  body  and  to  cleanse  the  filthiness  of  this 
dust,  that  I  may  be  apt  for  this  pureness." 


206     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

"E.  K.  'Now  he  taketh  the  white  gar- 
ment, and  putteth  it  on  him.  .  .  .  Now  he 
sitteth  down  on  the  desk-top  and  looketh 
toward  me.  ...  He  seemeth  now  to  be 
turned  to  a  woman,  and  the  very  same  which 
we  call  Galvah.'" 

Side  by  side  with  the  esoteric  and  trans- 
cendental utterances  which  Kelley  credited 
to  the  spirits,  he  cleverly  introduced  sufficient 
in  the  way  of  references  to  the  elixir  of  life  and 
the  transmutation  of  metals,  to  keep  alive  in 
Dee's  breast  the  hope  of  ultimately  solving 
the  crucial  problems  of  medieval  science.  All 
the  money  Dee  could  procure  was  spent  on 
ingredients  for  magical  formulas,  and  to  such 
lengths  did  his  enthusiasm  carry  him  that 
before  long  he  was  reduced  to  poverty.  He 
became  so  poor,  in  fact,  that  when,  in  the 
summer  of  1583,  the  Earl  of  Leicester  an- 
nounced his  intention  of  bringing  a  notable 
foreign  visitor,  Count  Albert  Lasky  of  Bo- 
hemia, to  dine  with  Dee,  the  unhappy  doctor 
was  compelled  to  send  word  that  he  could 
not  provide  a  proper  dinner.  Leicester, 
moved  to  pity,  reported  his  plight  to  the 
queen,  who  at  once  belied  her  reputation  for 
niggardliness  by  bestowing  a  liberal  gift  on 


A  Medieval  Ghost  Hunter  207 

the  Sage  of  Mortlake,  as  Dee  was  now  styled 
at  the  Court.  The  dinner  accordingly  took 
place,  and  was  a  tremendous  success  in  more 
ways  than  one. 

Lasky  turned  out  to  be  an  exceedingly 
excitable  and  impressionable  man,  and  his 
curiosity  was  so  aroused  by  the  occult  dis- 
course of  his  host  that  he  begged  to  be  ad- 
mitted to  the  seances.  Always  alert  to  the 
main  chance,  Kelley,  after  a  few  preliminary 
sittings  of  unusual  picturesqueness,  inspired 
the  spirits  to  predict  that  Lasky  would  one 
day  be  elected  King  of  Poland.  It  needed 
nothing  more  to  induce  the  happy  and 
hopeful  count  to  invite  both  Dee  and  Kelley 
to  return  with  him  to  Bohemia.  He  would, 
he  promised,  protect  and  provide  for  them; 
they  should  live  with  him  in  his  many  tur- 
reted  castle,  and  want  for  nothing.  Here, 
indeed,  was  a  pleasant  way  out  of  their 
present  poverty,  and  Dee  and  Kelley  readily 
gave  consent.  Nor  did  they  leave  Eng- 
land a  moment  too  soon.  Scarcely  had 
they  taken  ship  before  a  mob,  roused  to  fury 
by  superstitious  fears,  broke  into  the  phi- 
losopher's house  at  Mortlake  and  destroyed 
almost  everything  that  they  did  not  steal  — 


208     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

furniture,  books,  manuscripts,  and  costly  sci- 
entific apparatus. 

Of  this,  though,  Dee  for  the  moment  happily 
knew  nothing.  Nor,  for  all  his  long  inter- 
course with  the  spirits,  was  he  able  to  foresee 
that  he  was  now  embarking  on  a  career  of 
tragic  adventure  that  falls  to  the  lot  of  few 
scientists.  At  first,  however,  all  went  well 
enough.  Lasky  entertained  his  learned  guests 
in  lavish  fashion,  and,  assuming  their  garb  of 
long,  flowing  gown,  joined  heartily  with  them 
in  the  ceremonies  of  the  seance  room.  But  as 
time  passed  and  their  incantations  redounded 
in  no  way  to  his  advantage,  he  gradually  lost 
patience,  and  broadly  hinted  that  they  might 
better  transfer  their  services  to  another  patron. 
Whereupon,  closely  followed  by  the  irrepress- 
ible Kelley,  Dee  removed  to  the  court  of  the 
emperor,  Rudolph  II,  at  Prague.  He  had 
dedicated  one  of  his  scientific  treatises  to  the 
emperor's  father,  and  in  his  simplicity  firmly 
believed  that  this  would  insure  him  a  warm 
and  lasting  welcome.  But  Rudolph,  from 
the  outset,  showed  himself  far  from  well-dis- 
posed to  Dee,  Kelley,  and  their  attendant 
retinue  of  invisible  spirits.  When  Dee  gran- 
diloquently introduced  himself,  in  a  Latin 


A  Medieval  Ghost  Hunter  209 

oration,  as  a  messenger  from  the  unseen 
world,  the  emperor  curtly  checked  him  with 
the  remark  that  he  did  not  understand  Latin. 
And  the  next  day  a  hint  was  given  him  that, 
at  the  request  of  the  papal  nuncio,  he  and 
Kelley  were  to  be  arrested  and  sent  to  Rome 
for  trial  as  necromancers.  Before  night-fall 
they  were  in  full  flight,  to  remain  homeless 
wanderers  until  another  Bohemian  count, 
hearing  of  their  presence  in  his  dominions, 
took  them  under  his  protection  on  the  proviso 
that  they  were  to  replenish  his  exchequer  by 
converting  humble  pewter  into  silver  and 
gold. 

In  this,  of  course,  they  signally  failed,  and 
the  next  few  years  of  their  lives  were  years  of 
the  greatest  misery.  This,  at  any  rate,  so  far 
as  Dee  was  concerned.  Kelley,  with  pitiless 
insistence,  drew  his  pay  regularly,  and  when 
funds  were  not  forthcoming,  refused  to  act  as 
crystal-gazer  and  spirit  interpreter.  On  one 
of  these  occasions  Dee  tried  to  replace  him  by 
training  his  son,  Arthur  Dee,  as  a  crystal- 
gazer;  but,  try  as  he  might,  the  boy  said  he 
could  see  in  the  crystal  nothing  but  meaning- 
less clouds  and  specks.  Had  Dee  not  been 
thoroughly  infatuated  this  might  have  disillu- 


210    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

sioned  him,  and  convinced  him  that  Kelley 
had  simply  been  preying  on  his  credulity. 
But  the  old  man  —  he  was  now  well  advanced 
in  years  —  saw  in  his  son's  failure  only  proof 
of  Kelley's  superior  gifts,  and  by  dint  of  great 
sacrifices  contrived  to  find  the  money  necessary 
to  persuade  him  to  return  to  his  post.  At  last 
a  day  came  when  money  could  no  longer  be 
found,  and  then  Kelley  definitely  determined 
to  break  the  partnership.  According  to  one 
account,  he  informed  Dee  that,  for  the  sake 
of  his  immortal  soul,  he  could  no  longer  have 
dealings  with  the  spirits;  that  they  were 
spirits  not  of  good  but  of  evil,  and  Mephis- 
topheles  was  their  master;  and  that,  did  he 
continue  to  traffic  with  them,  Mephistopheles 
would  soon  have  him,  body  and  soul.  An- 
other version  —  given  by  the  astrologer, 
William  Lilly,  who  is  said  to  have  been  con- 
sulted by  the  friends  of  King  Charles  I.  as  to 
the  best  time  for  that  unhappy  monarch  to 
attempt  to  escape  from  prison  —  says  that 
one  fine  morning  Kelley  took  French  leave  of 
Dee,  running  away  with  an  alchemically 
inclined  friar  who  had  promised  him  a  good 
income.  Whatever  the  facts  of  his  final  rup- 
ture with  his  long-suffering  master,  it  is  cer- 


A  Medieval  Ghost  Hunter  211 

tain  that,  after  a  romantic  career,  in  which  he 
gained  a  German  baronetcy,  Kelley  was 
clapped  into  prison  on  a  charge  of  fraud,  and 
broke  his  neck  while  trying  to  escape. 

Dr.  Dee,  in  the  meantime,  a  sadder  if  not  a 
really  wiser  man,  had  found  his  way  back  to 
England,  where  he  essayed  the  difficult  task 
of  retrieving  his  ruined  fortunes.  Elizabeth 
smiled  on  him  as  graciously  as  ever,  and  at 
Christmas  time  sent  to  him  a  royal  gift  of  two 
hundred  angels  in  gold.  But  he  needed  more 
than  an  occasional  bounty;  he  needed  the 
assurance  of  a  steady  income,  and  the  chance 
to  pursue  again  his  scientific  studies  undis- 
turbed by  the  phantoms  of  gnawing  want. 
So,  in  a  memorial,  "written  with  tears  of 
blood,"  as  he  himself  put  it,  Dee  begged  the 
queen  to  appoint  a  commission  to  investigate 
his  case  and  review  the  evidence  he  would 
produce  to  prove  that  his  services  to  the  nation 
warranted  a  reward.  Promptly  the  commis- 
sion was  appointed,  and  as  promptly  began 
its  labors.  This  led  to  what  Isaac  Disraeli, 
perhaps  Dee's  best  biographer,  has  described 
as  a  "  literary  scene  of  singular  novelty." 

Let  me  depict  it  in  Disraeli's  little  known 
words:  "Dee,  sitting  in  his  library,"  says 


212     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

Disraeli,  "received  the  royal  commissioners. 
Two  tables  were  arranged;  on  one  lay  all  the 
books  he  had  published,  with  his  unfinished 
manuscripts;  the  most  extraordinary  one  was 
an  elaborate  narrative  of  the  transactions  of 
his  whole  life.  This  manuscript  his  secretary 
read,  and,  as  it  proceeded,  from  the  other 
table  Dee  presented  the  commissioners  with 
every  testimonial.  These  vouchers  consisted 
of  royal  letters  from  the  Queen,  and  from 
princes,  ambassadors,  and  the  most  illustrious 
persons  of  England  and  of  Europe;  passports 
which  traced  his  routes,  and  journals  which 
noted  his  arrivals  and  departures;  grants  and 
appointments  and  other  remarkable  evidences ; 
and  when  these  were  wanting,  he  appealed 
to  living  witnesses. 

"Among  the  employments  which  he  had 
filled,  he  particularly  alluded  to  a  'painful 
journey  in  the  winter  season,  of  more  than 
fifteen  hundred  miles,  to  confer  with  learned 
physicians  on  the  Continent,  about  her  maj- 
esty's health.'  He  showed  the  offers  of 
many  princes  to  the  English  philosopher,  to 
retire  to  their  courts,  and  the  princely  estab- 
lishment at  Moscow  proffered  by  the  czar; 
but  he  had  never  faltered  in  his  devotion  to 


A  Medieval  Ghost  Hunter  213 

his  sovereign.  ...  He  complained  that  his 
house  at  Mortlake  was  too  public  for  his 
studies,  and  incommodious  for  receiving  the 
numerous  foreign  literati  who  resorted  to  him. 
Of  all  the  promised  preferments,  he  would 
have  chosen  the  mastership  of  St.  Cross  for 
its  seclusion.  Here  is  a  great  man  making 
great  demands,  but  reposing  with  dignity  on 
his  claims;  his  wants  were  urgent,  but  the 
penury  was  not  in  his  spirit.  The  commis- 
sioners, as  they  listened  to  his  autobiography, 
must  often  have  raised  their  eyes  in  wonder, 
on  the  venerable  and  dignified  author  before 
them." 

Their  report  was  terse,  direct,  and  wholly 
favorable,  inspiring  the  queen  to  declare  that 
Dee  should  have  the  mastership  of  St.  Cross, 
and  that  immediately.  But  days  passed  into 
months,  and  months  into  years,  and  Eliza- 
beth's "immediately"  still  belonged  to  the 
future.  For  some  reason  she  soon  lost 
all  interest  in  the  returned  Sage  of  Mortlake. 
Again  and  again  he  memorialized  her, 
once  with  a  letter  vindicating  himself  from 
the  accusation  of  practising  sorcery.  Her  sole 
reply  was  to  grant  him  finally  the  uncongenial 
post  of  warden  of  Manchester  College,  from 


214     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

which  he  retired  after  some  mortifying  ex- 
periences with  the  minor  officials.  Nor  did 
he  fare  better  at  the  hands  of  Elizabeth's 
successor.  Steadily  he  sank  lower  in  the  scale 
of  society,  until  at  last  he  was  forced  to  sell 
his  books,  one  by  one,  to  buy  bread.  And 
still,  for  all  his  poverty,  he  pressed  constantly 
forward  in  his  adventurings  into  the  invisible 
world.  If  his  friends  deserted  him,  he  would 
at  least  have  the  companionship  of  "angels." 
As  his  hallucinations  grew,  his  youthful  buoy- 
ancy returned.  He  would  leave  England, 
would  fare  across  to  the  Continent,  and  there 
seek  out  men  of  a  mind  like  unto  his  own. 
Joyfully,  he  made  ready  for  the  journey;  but, 
even  while  he  packed  and  planned,  the  call 
came  for  another  and  a  longer  voyage.  In 
the  eighty-first  year  of  his  age,  1608,  the  aged 
dreamer  became  in  very  fact  a  dweller  in  the 
spirit  world. 

Of  his  place  in  the  history  of  mankind,  it  is 
not  easy  to  write  with  any  degree  of  finality. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  was  utterly 
swept  off  his  feet  by  the  domination  of  a  fixed 
idea.  And  it  is  not  possible  to  point  to  any 
specific  contributions  which  he  made  to  the 
advancement  of  learning,  worldly  or  otherwise. 


A  Medieval  Ghost  Hunter          215 

Still,  it  is  equally  certain  that  he  was  anything 
but  a  negative  quantity  in  an  age  resplendent 
for  its  positive  men.  He  played  his  part, 
however  mistakenly,  in  the  intellectual  awak- 
ening that  has  shed  such  luster  on  the  times 
of  Elizabeth ;  and,  if  only  for  his  overpowering 
curiosity,  and  his  intense  and  unfailing  ardor 
to  get  at  the  truth  of  all  things,  natural  or 
supernatural,  he  merits  respect  as  a  forerunner 
of  the  scientific  spirit  which  in  his  day  was  but 
feebly  striving  to  loose  itself  from  the  bondage 
of  bigotry  and  intolerance. 


XI 

GHOST  HUNTERS  OF  YESTERDAY  AND  TO- 
DAY 

PYCHICAL  research,  of  which  so  much 
mention  has  been  made  in  the  preceding 
pages,  may  be  roughly  yet  sufficiently  de- 
scribed as  an  effort  to  determine  by  strictly 
scientific  methods  the  nature  and  significance 
of  apparitions,  hauntings,  spiritistic  phenom- 
ena, and  those  other  weird  occurrences  that 
would  seem  to  confirm  the  idea  that  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  can  and  do  communicate 
with  the  living.  It  is  something  compara- 
tively new  —  and  like  all  scientific  endeavor 
is  the  outgrowth  of  many  minds.  But  so  far 
as  its  origin  may  be  attributed  to  any  one 
man,  credit  must  chiefly  be  given  to  a  Cam- 
bridge University  professor  named  Henry 
Sidgwick. 

At  the  time,  Sidgwick  was  merely  a  lecturer 
in  the  university,  a  post  given  him  as  a  reward 
for  his  brilliant  career  as  an  undergraduate. 
He  was  a  born  student  and  investigator,  a 

216 


Ghost  Hunters  of  To-day  217 

restless  seeker  after  knowledge.  Philosophy, 
sociology,  ethics,  economics,  mathematics,  the 
classics,  —  he  made  almost  the  whole  wide 
field  of  thought  his  sphere  of  inquiry.  And 
after  awhile,  as  is  so  often  the  case,  his  learn- 
ing became  too  profound  for  his  peace  of 
mind.  He  had  been  born  and  brought  up  in 
the  faith  of  the  English  Church,  and  had 
unhesitatingly  made  the  religious  declaration 
required  of  all  members  of  the  university 
faculty.  But  little  by  little  he  felt  himself 
drifting  from  the  moorings  of  his  youth,  and 
doubting  the  truth  of  the  ancient  doctrines  and 
traditions.  Honestly  skeptical,  but  still  un- 
willing to  lose  his  hold  on  religion,  he  turned 
feverishly  to  the  study  of  oriental  languages, 
of  ancient  philosophies,  of  history,  of  science, 
in  the  hope  of  finding  evidence  that  would  re- 
move his  doubts.  But  the  more  he  read  the 
greater  grew  his  uncertainty,  especially  with 
respect  to  the  vital  question  of  the  existence 
of  a  spiritual  world  and  its  relation  to  man- 
kind. 

While  he  was  still  laboring  in  this  valley  of 
indecision,  Sidgwick  was  visited  by  a  young 
man,  Frederic  W.  H.  Myers,  who  had  studied 
under  him  a  few  years  earlier  and  for  whom 


218     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

he  had  formed  a  warm  friendship.  Myers,  it 
seemed,  was  tormented  by  the  same  scruples 
that  were  harassing  him.  It  was  his  belief, 
he  told  Sidgwick,  that  if  the  teachings  of  the 
Bible  were  true  —  if  there  existed  a  spiritual 
world  which  in  days  of  old  had  been  manifest 
to  mankind  —  then  such  a  world  should  be 
manifest  now.  And  one  beautiful,  starlit 
evening,  when  they  were  strolling  together 
through  the  university  grounds,  he  put  to  his 
old  master  the  pointed  question : 

"Do  you  think  that,  although  tradition, 
intuition,  metaphysics,  have  failed  to  solve  the 
riddle  of  the  universe,  there  is  still  a  chance 
of  solving  it  by  drawing  from  actual  observable 
phenomena  —  ghosts,  spirits,  whatsoever  it 
may  be  —  valid  knowledge  as  to  a  world  un- 
seen?" 

Gazing  gravely  into  the  eager  face  of  his 
companion,  and  weighing  his  words  with  the 
caution  that  was  characteristic  of  him,  Sidg- 
wick replied  that  he  had  indeed  entertained 
this  thought;  that,  although  not  over  hopeful 
of  the  result,  he  believed  such  an  inquiry  should 
be  undertaken,  notwithstanding  the  unpleas- 
ant notoriety  it  would  entail  on  those  embark- 
ing in  it.  Would  he,  then,  make  the  quest, 


Ghost  Hunters  oj  To-day  219 

and  would  he  permit  Myers  to  pursue  it  by 
his  side  ?  Long  and  earnestly  the  two  friends 
talked  together,  and  when  tb  *r  walk  ended, 
that  December  night  in  Ko9,  psychical  re- 
search had  at  last  come  definitely  into  being. 

In  the  beginning,  however,  progress  was 
painfully  slow  and  uncertain.  "Our  meth- 
ods," as  Myers  afterward  explained,  "were 
all  to  make.  In  those  early  days  we  were  more 
devoid  of  precedents,  of  guidance,  even  of 
criticism  that  went  beyond  mere  expressions 
of  contempt,  than  is  now  readily  conceived." 

It  was  realized  that  no  mere  analysis  of 
alleged  experiences  in  the  past  would  do;  that 
what  was  needed  was  a  rigid  scrutiny  of  pres- 
ent-day manifestations  of  a  seemingly  super- 
normal character,  and  the  collection  of  a  mass 
of  well  authenticated  evidence  sufficient  to 
justify  inferences  and  conclusions.  Earnestly 
and  bravely  the  friends  went  to  work,  and 
before  long  had  the  satisfaction  of  finding  an 
invaluable  assistant  in  the  person  of  Edmund 
Gurney,  another  Cambridge  man  and  an  en- 
thusiast in  all  matters  metaphysical. 

At  first,  to  be  sure,  Gurney  entered  into 
psychical  research  in  a  half-hearted,  quizzi- 
cal way,  expecting  to  be  amused  rather  than 


220    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

instructed.  And  he  derived  little  encourage- 
ment from  the  investigations  carried  on  by 
Sidgwick,  Myt  s,  and  himself  in  the  field  of 
spiritistic  mediuiL  hip.  Fraud  seemed  always 
to  be  at  the  botto  of  the  phenomena  pro- 
duced in  the  sea*c;e  room.  But  his  interest 
was  suddenly  and  permanently  awakened  by 
the  discovery,  following  several  years  spent  in 
patiently  collecting  evidence,  of  facts  pointing 
to  the  possibility  of  thought  being  communi- 
cated from  mind  to  mind  by  some  agency 
other  than  the  recognized  organs  of  sense. 
At  once  he  made  it  his  special  business  to 
accumulate  data  bearing  on  this  point,  his 
labors  ultimately  leading  him  into  an  ex- 
haustive examination  of  hypnotism,  as  he 
found  that  the  hypnotic  trance  seemed  pe- 
culiarly favorable  to  "  thought  transference," 
or  "telepathy." 

Meantime,  the  example  of  this  little  Cam- 
bridge group  had  been  followed  by  other  inves- 
tigators; and  in  1876,  before  no  less  dignified 
and  conservative  a  body  than  the  British 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science, 
the  proposal  was  made  that  a  special  com- 
mittee be  appointed  for  the  systematic  exam- 
ination of  spiritistic  and  kindred  phenomena. 


Ghost  Hunters  of  To-day  221 

The  idea  was  broached  by  Dr.  W.  F.  Barrett, 
professor  of  physics  at  the  Royal  College  of 
Science,  Dublin,  and  was  warmly  seconded 
by  Dr.  Alfred  Russel  Wallace  and  Sir  William 
Crookes,  two  distinguished  scientists  who  had 
already  made  adventures  in  psychical  research 
and  were  destined  to  wide  renown  as  ghost 
hunters. 

For  some  reason  nothing  was  done  at  the 
time ;  but  five  years  later  Professor  Barrett  re- 
newed his  suggestion,  asking  Myers  and 
Gurney  if  they  would  join  him  in  the  forma- 
tion of  such  a  society.  That,  they  replied, 
they  would  gladly  do,  provided  Sidgwick 
could  be  induced  to  accept  its  presidency. 
Having  long  before  realized  that  the  field  was 
too  extensive  for  thorough  exploration  by  any 
individual,  however  gifted,  Sidgwick  willingly 
gave  his  consent.  And  accordingly,  in  Janu- 
ary, 1882,  the  now  celebrated  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  was  formally  organized, 
its  first  council  including,  besides  Sidgwick, 
Myers,  Gurney,  and  Barrett,  such  men  as 
Arthur  J.  Balfour,  afterward  Prime  Minis- 
ter of  Great  Britain;  the  brilliant  Richard 
Hutton;  Prof.  Balfour  Stewart;  and  Frank 
Podmore,  than  whom  no  more  merciless  exe- 


222    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

cutioner  of  bogus  ghosts  is  wielding  the  ax 
to-day. 

Unfortunately,  the  first  council  also  num- 
bered several  avowed  spiritists,  notably  the 
medium  Stainton  Moses;  and  the  society's 
birthplace  was  in  the  rooms  of  the  British 
National  Association  of  Spiritualists.  These 
two  facts  created  a  wide-spread  suspicion  that 
the  society  was  actually  nothing  more  than  an 
adjunct  to  the  spiritistic  movement.  Nor  was 
confidence  wholly  restored  by  the  hasty  with- 
drawal of  the  spiritistic  representatives  as  soon 
as  they  learned  that  strictly  scientific  methods 
of  inquiry  were  to  prevail ;  or  by  the  accession, 
as  honorary  members,  of  national  figures  like 
W.  E.  Gladstone,  John  Ruskin,  Lord  Tenny- 
son, A.  R.  Wallace,  Sir  William  Crookes,  and 
G.  F.  Watts. 

To  the  scientific  as  well  as  the  popular  con- 
sciousness, the  society  was  little  better  than 
an  assemblage  of  cranks,  with  strangely  fan- 
tastic notions,  and  only  too  likely  to  lose  its 
mental  balance  and  help  ignorant  and  super- 
stitious people  to  lose  theirs.  Conscious, 
however,  of  the  really  serious  and  important 
nature  of  their  enterprise,  and  cheered  by 
Gladstone's  comforting  assurance  that  no  in- 


Ghost  Hunters  of  To-day  223 

vestigation  of  greater  moment  to  mankind 
could  be  made,*  the  members  of  the  society 
applied  themselves  zealously  to  the  business 
that  had  brought  them  together. 

Sensibly  enough,  they  adopted  the  princi- 
ple of  specialization  and  division  of  labor. 
While  one  group  carried  on  experiments  de- 
signed to  prove  or  disprove  the  telepathic 
hypothesis,  another  engaged  in  a  systematic 
examination  of  the  alleged  facts  of  clairvoy- 
ance. A  third,  in  its  turn,  under  the  skilful 
guidance  of  Gurney,  investigated  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  hypnotic  trance,  with  results 
unexpectedly  beneficial  to  medical  science.  A 
special  committee  was  also  appointed  to  col- 
lect and  sift  evidence  as  to  the  reality  of 
apparitions  and  hauntings,  making  whenever 
possible  personal  examinations  of  the  seers  of 
the  visions  and  the  places  of  their  occurrence. 
Finally,  there  were  various  subcommittees  of 
inquiry  into  the  physical  phenomena  of  spirit- 
ism, —  the  knockings,  table  turnings,  pro- 
duction of  spirit  forms,  and  similar  marvels  of 
the  Dunglas  Home  type  of  "medium." 

*  Gladstone's  words  were  —  "  Psychical  research  is  the  most  im- 
portant work  which  is  being  done  in  the  world  —  by  far  the  most 
important." 


224     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

From  the  outset,  these  subcommittees  demon- 
strated the  value  of  psychical  research,  as  a 
protection  to  the  interests  of  society,  by  ex- 
posing, one  after  another,  the  fraudulent  char- 
acter of  the  pretended  intermediaries  between 
the  seen  and  the  unseen  world. 

In  this'  region  of  inquiry  no  one  was  more 
successful  than  a  recruit  from  distant  Aus- 
tralia, by  name  Richard  Hodgson.  Hodgson, 
unlike  Sidgwick  and  Myers  and  many  others 
of  his  associates,  had  not  engaged  in  psychical 
research  from  the  hope  that  the  truths  of  the 
Bible  might  thereby  be  demonstrated.  His 
motive  was  that  of  the  detective  eager  to  un- 
ravel mysteries.  From  his  boyhood  he  had 
had  a  singular  fondness  for  solving  tricks  and 
puzzles  of  all  sorts;  and  when,  in  1878,  he 
came  to  England  to  complete  his  education  at 
Cambridge,  he  naturally  gravitated  into  the 
company  of  Sidgwick,  Myers,  and  Gurney,  as 
men  busied  in  an  undertaking  that  appealed 
to  his  detective  instinct.  He  was  radically 
different  from  them  in  temperament  and  point 
of  view  —  not  at  all  mystical,  full  of  animal 
spirits,  fond  of  all  manner  of  sports,  and  in- 
terested in  occult  subjects  only  so  far  as  they 
furnished  working  material  for  his  nimble  and 


Ghost  Hunters  of  To-day  225 

inquiring  mind.  The  Cambridge  trio,  how- 
ever, took  kindly  to  him,  invited  him  to  join 
the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  and  two 
years  after  its  formation  were  instrumental 
in  sending  him  to  India  to  investigate  the 
methods  of  Madam  Blavatsky,  the  high 
priestess  of  the  theosophic  movement  which 
was  then  winning  adherents  throughout  the 
civilized  world. 

From  this  inquiry  he  returned  to  England 
with  an  international  reputation  as  a  detec- 
tive of  the  supernatural.  With  the  aid  of  two 
disgruntled  confederates  of  the  theosophist 
leader,  he  had  demonstrated  the  falsity  of  the 
foundations  on  which  her  claims  rested,  and 
had  shown  that  downright  swindling  consti- 
tuted a  large  part  of  her  stock  in  trade.  With 
redoubled  ardor  he  now  plunged  into  the 
task  of  exposing  the  spiritistic  mediums  plying 
their  vocation  in  England,  and  for  this  pur- 
pose enlisted  the  assistance  of  a  professional 
conjurer,  S.  J.  Davey,  who  was  also  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research. 

Davey,  after  a  little  practice,  succeeded  in 
duplicating  by  mere  sleight  of  hand  many  of 
the  most  impressive  feats  of  the  mediums;  do- 
ing this,  indeed,  so  well  that  some  spiritists 


226     Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

alleged  that  he  was  in  reality  a  medium  him- 
self. Hodgson,  for  his  part,  by  clever  analysis 
of  the  Davey  performances  and  of  the  feats  of 
Davey's  mediumistic  competitors,  brought 
home  to  his  colleagues  in  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  a  lively  sense  of  the  folly 
of  depending  on  the  human  eye  as  a  detector 
of  fraudulent  spiritistic  phenomena.  His 
crowning  triumph  came  with  his  exposure  of 
Eusapia  Paladino,  the  Italian  medium  who  is 
still  enjoying  an  undeserved  popularity  on  the 
European  continent. 

But  in  time  even  Hodgson  met  his  Waterloo. 
Sent  to  the  United  States  to  investigate  the 
trance  phenomena  of  Mrs.  Leonora  Piper, 
he  was  forced  to  confess  that  in  her  case  the 
theory  of  fraud  fell  to  the  ground,  and  as  is 
well  known  he  ended  by  developing  into  an 
out  and  out  spiritist.  A  few  days  before 
Christmas,  1905,  he  suddenly  died  in  Boston; 
and,  if  reports  from  the  spirit  world  may  be 
accepted,  the  once-renowned  ghost  hunter  has 
himself  become  a  ghost,  visiting  in  especial 
two  of  his  American  colleagues,  Prof.  William 
James  and  Prof.  James  H.  Hyslop.* 

*  For  details  of  the  Hodgson  "  manifestations "  the  reader  may 
consult  Professor  Hyslop's  recently  published  book  "  Psychical  Re- 
search and  the  Resurrection  "  —  particularly  Chaps.  V-VH. 


Ghost  Hunters  of  To-day  227 

To  return,  however,  to  the  early  days  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research.  Valuable  as 
were  the  results  obtained  by  Hodgson  and  his 
associates  on  what  may  be  called  the  anti- 
swindle  committees,  they  had  a  distinctly 
negative  bearing  on  the  supreme  object  of 
inquiry  —  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  spiritual 
world  in  which  human  personality  exists 
after  the  death  of  the  body.  Some  enthu- 
siasts did  not  hesitate  to  proclaim  at  an  early 
date  that  such  proof  had  actually  been  se- 
cured, basing  this  assertion  on  the  seemingly 
supernatural  facts  brought  to  light  by  the 
committees  on  telepathy,  clairvoyance,  and 
apparitions.  But  the  society,  under  the  leader- 
ship of  the  cautious  Sidgwick,  who  was  its 
president  for  many  years,  steadily  refused  to 
countenance  this  view,  and  insisted  that  before 
any  definite  conclusions  could  be  reached  far 
more  evidence  would  have  to  be  assembled. 
Thus  the  first  ten  years  of  the  society's  exist- 
ence were  marked  by  few  positive  results,  — 
the  most  important  being  the  statement  of  the 
case  for  telepathy  and  of  its  possible  relation- 
ships to  apparitions  and  hauntings,  as  well  as 
to  the  purely  psychical  phenomena  of  spirit- 
ualism. 


228    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

Indeed,  the  society  formally  expressed  its  ac- 
quiescence in  the  telepathic  hypothesis  as  early 
as  1884,  in  the  words,  "Our  society  claims 
to  have  proved  the  reality  of  thought  trans- 
ference —  of  the  transmission  of  thoughts, 
feelings,  and  images  from  one  mind  to  an- 
other by  no  recognized  channel  of  sense." 
But  to  no  other  dictum  did  it  commit  itself 
until  ten  years  more  had  passed  when,  fol- 
lowing the  so-called  census  of  hallucinations, 
it  gave  voice  to  its  belief  that  between  deaths 
and  apparitions  of  the  dying  person  a  con- 
nection existed  that  was  not  due  to  chance. 
And  since  then  the  society  has  contented  itself 
with  steadily  accumulating  evidence  designed 
to  throw  light  on  the  causal  connection  between 
deaths  and  ghosts,  and  to  illumine  the  central 
problem  of  demonstrating  scientifically  the 
existence  of  an  unseen  world  and  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul. 

Individuals,  of  course,  have  been  free  to 
express  their  views,  and  from  the  pens  of 
several  have  come  striking  and  suggestive 
analyses  of  the  evidence  assembled  in  the 
course  of  the  society's  twenty-five  years.  In 
this  respect,  beyond  any  question,  primacy 
must  be  given  the  writings  of  Myers.  Even 


Ghost  Hunters  of  To-day  229 

before  the  organization  of  the  society,  his  per- 
sonal researches  had  led  him  to  suspect  that, 
whatever  the  truth  about  the  life  beyond  the 
grave,  there  was  reason  for  radical  changes 
of  belief  regarding  the  nature  of  human  per- 
sonality itself.  In  the  light  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  hypnotic  trance,  clairvoyance,  halluci- 
nations, and  even  of  natural  sleep,  it  seemed 
to  him  that,  instead  of  being  a  stable,  indi- 
visible unity,  human  personality  was  essen- 
tially unstable  and  divisible. 

And  as  the  years  passed  and  he  was  enabled 
to  coordinate  the  results  of  the  investigations 
carried  on  by  the  different  committees,  he 
gradually  became  convinced  that  over  and 
beyond  the  self  of  which  man  is  normally  con- 
scious there  existed  in  every  man  a  secondary 
self  endowed  with  faculties  transcending  those 
of  the  normal  wake-a-day  self.  To  this  he 
gave  the  name  of  the  "  subliminal  self,"  and, 
in  the  words  of  Professor  James,  "endowed 
psychology  with  a  new  problem,  —  the  explo- 
ration of  the  subliminal  region  being  destined 
to  figure  thereafter  in  that  branch  of  learning 
as  Myers's  problem." 

Not  content  with  this,  he  gave  himself,  with 
all  the  earnestness  that  had  originally  drawn 


230    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

him  into  activity  with  Sidgwick,  to  the  formula- 
tion of  a  cosmic  philosophy  based  on  the 
hypothesis  of  the  subliminal  self  and  its  opera- 
tions in  that  unseen  world  of  whose  existence 
he  no  longer  doubted.  Here  he  laid  himself 
open  to  the  charge  of  extravagance  and  trans- 
cendentalism, and  undoubtedly  exceeded  the 
logical  limit.  But  for  all  of  that  his  labors  — 
cut  short  by  death  six  years  ago,  and  only  a 
few  months  after  the  death  of  his  beloved 
master,  Sidgwick  —  have  been  little  short  of 
epoch  marking,  and  amply  suffice  to  vindicate 
the  existence  of  the  once  despised,  and  still 
by  no  means  venerated,  Society  for  Psychical 
Research. 

Sir  William  Crookes,  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  and 
Mr.  Frank  Podmore  are  other  members  of  the 
society  who  have  granted  the  outside  world 
informative  glimpses  of  its  workings  and  dis- 
coveries. Sir  William  Crookes,  of  course,  is 
best  known  as  a  great  chemist,  discoverer  of 
the  element  thallium,  and  inventor  of  numer- 
ous scientific  instruments;  while  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge's  most  striking  work  has  been  in  elec- 
tricity, and  more  particularly  in  the  direction 
of  improving  wireless  telegraphy.  But  both 
have  long  been  actively  interested  in  psychical 


Ghost  Hunters  of  To-day  231 

research,  and  perhaps  most  of  all  in  those 
phases  of  it  bearing  on  the  telepathic  hypothe- 
sis, their  great  aim  being  to  discover  just  what 
the  technique  of  telepathic  communication 
from  mind  to  mind  may  be. 

Mr.  Podmore,  on  the  other  hand,  like 
Richard  Hodgson,  has  chiefly  concerned  him- 
self with  psychical  research  from  the  detective, 
or  critical,  standpoint.  He  began  his  labors 
late  in  the  '70's,  associating  himself  with 
the  Cambridge  group,  and  has  consistently 
maintained  the  attitude  of  a  skeptical,  though 
open  minded,  investigator.  To-day,  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  he  may  be  said  to  occupy  the 
place  so  long  filled  by  Henry  Sidgwick  as  a 
sane,  restraining  influence  on  the  less  judicial 
members  of  the  society,  who  would  unhesi- 
tatingly brush  aside  all  objections  and  em- 
brace the  spiritistic  hypothesis  with  all  its 
supernatural  implications.* 

Of  course,  psychical  research  has  by  no 
means  been  confined  to  the  English  organiza- 
tion. All  over  the  world  investigators  are 
now  probing  into  the  mysteries  of  the  seem- 

*  A  new  work  by  Mr.  Podmore  is  announced  for  immediate  pub- 
lication, with  the  characteristic  title  of  "The  Naturalization  of  the 
Supernatural."  It  is  said  to  contain  a  detailed  analysis  of  the  work 
of  various  well-known  mediums. 


232    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

ingly  supernormal.  But,  as  a  general  thing, 
their  methods  scarcely  reach  the  strict  stand- 
ards set  by  the  organized  inquirers  of  England, 
and  as  a  natural  consequence  they  are  more 
easily  deceived  by  tricksters. 

This  is  particularly  true  of  the  European 
ghost  hunters,  whose  laxity  of  procedure,  not 
to  say  gullibility,  was  clearly  shown  by  the  ease 
with  which  Hodgson  exposed  the  pretensions 
of  Eusapia  Paladino  after  Continental  savants 
had  pronounced  her  feats  genuine.  And  it  is 
even  more  strikingly  exhibited  by  the  pathetic 
fidelity  with  which  they  still  trust  in  her,  not- 
withstanding the  Hodgson  exposure,  and  the 
fact  that  they  themselves  have  on  more  than 
one  occasion  caught  her  committing  fraud. 
In  the  United  States,  however,  psychical  re- 
search worthy  of  the  name  took  root  early, 
owing  to  the  establishment  of  an  American 
branch  of  the  English  society  under  the  ca- 
pable direction  of  Dr.  Hodgson.  A  year  or  so 
ago,  after  his  death,  this  branch  was  aban- 
doned. But  in  its  place,  and  organized  along 
similar  lines,  there  has  arisen  the  American 
Institute  for  Scientific  Research,  the  creation 
of  Prof.  James  H.  Hyslop. 

Until  a  few  years  ago  occupant  of  the  chair 


Ghost  Hunters  of  To-day  233 

of  logic  at  Columbia  University,  Professor 
Hyslop  is  unquestionably  one  of  the  most 
conspicuous  figures  in  psychical  research  in 
this  or  any  other  country.  Like  Professor 
Sidgwick,  he  first  became  interested  in  the 
subject  through  religious  doubt,  and  forthwith 
attacked  its  problems  with  the  zeal  of  a  man 
whose  principal  characteristics  are  intense 
enthusiasm,  resourcefulness  of  wit,  and  intel- 
lectual fearlessness.  As  everybody  knows, 
his  experiences  with  Mrs.  Piper  led  him  to 
unite  with  Hodgson  and  Myers  in  regarding 
the  spiritistic  hypothesis  as  the  only  one  ca- 
pable of  explaining  all  the  phenomena  en- 
countered. But  he  is  none  the  less  able  and 
eager  to  expose  fraud  wherever  found,  and  if 
only  from  the  police  view-point  his  society  will 
undoubtedly  do  good  work.  Associated  with 
him  are  many  of  the  American  investigators 
formerly  identified  with  the  English  society; 
some  of  whom,  notably  Prof.  William  James 
of  Harvard,  the  dean  of  psychical  research  in 
the  United  States,  also  keep  up  their  connec- 
tion with  the  parent  organization. 

Summing  up  the  results  of  the  really  scien- 
tific ghost  hunting  of  the  last  twenty-five  years, 
it  may  be  safely  said  that  if  the  hunters  have 


234    Historic  Ghosts  and  Ghost  Hunters 

not  accomplished  their  main  object  of  defi- 
nitely proving  the  existence  of  a  spiritual 
world,  their  labors  have  nevertheless  been  of 
high  value  in  several  important  directions. 
They  have  exposed  the  fraudulent  preten- 
sions of  innumerable  charlatans,  and  have  thus 
acted  as  a  protection  for  the  credulous.  They 
(  have  shown  that,  making  all  possible  allow- 
ance for  error  of  whatever  kind,  there  still 
remains  in  the  phenomena  of  apparitions, 
clairvoyance,  etc.,  a  residuum  not  explainable 
on  the  hypothesis  of  fraud  or  chance  coinci- 
dence. They  have  aided  in  giving  validity  to 
the  idea  of  the  influence  of  suggestion  as  a 
factor  both  in  the  cause  and  the  cure  of  disease. 
They  have  given  a  needed  stimulus  to  the  study 
of  abnormal  mental  conditions.  And,  finally, 
by  the  discovery  of  the  impressive  facts  that 
led  Myers  to  formulate  his  hypothesis  of  the 
subliminal  self,  they  have  opened  the  door  to 
far-reaching  reforms  in  the  whole  sociological 
domain,  —  in  education,  in  the  treatment  of 
vice  and  crime,  in  all  else  that  makes  for  the 
uplifting  of  the  human  race. 


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THE    RIDDLE    OF 
PERSONALITY 

BY  H.   ADDINGTON   BRUCE 

AUTHOR  OF  "  HISTORIC  GHOSTS  AND  GHOST  HUNTERS  " 


•      CONTENTS 

CHAPTERS  APPENDICES 

I.    Early    Phases    of    the  I.    D.    D.   Home    and 

Problem  Eusapia  Paladino 

II.    The  Subliminal  Self  n.    The  Census  of  Halluci- 

III.  "Pioneers  of  France  in  nations 

the  New  World"  m     Hypnotism  and  the 

IV.  American  Explorers  of  Drink  Rabit 

the  Subconscious  _...  TT         ... 

V.    The  Evidence  for  Sur-  **  Hypnoidization 

vival  V.  Spiritism  vs  Telepathy 

VI.    The    Nemesis    of  VI.  Hints  for  further  read- 
Spiritism  ing 

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revealed  by  study,  accident,  personal  observation  and  experiment." 
— Boston  Evening  Transcript. 

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